Tag: Digital Marketing

Categories
Social Media

Kamaii ki Kahani – Marketing a home-cooked food ordering & delivery app

Flora Fountain is not new to marketing and promoting food brands digitally. Some of our highly successful campaigns as a social media marketing company in Ahmedabad, India have been for prominent restaurant chains, cafes and hotels.

But, Kamaii is different. It was not just another food ordering and delivery app. It is a novel idea, which has come to fruition thanks to the efforts and intentions of the client and their team of home chefs, to make food accessible to the multitudes left wanting post-pandemic. However, when Flora Fountain was on-boarded as one of the best digital marketing companies in Ahmedabad, the audience was yet to see and experience the concept.

Here’s how we made it happen: Kamaii ki Kahaani.

About Kamaii – The Client

Kamaii is the brainchild of Darshan and Stuti Jani, first-generation entrepreneurs and venture capitalist couple, who wanted to bring together the talented home chefs of Ahmedabad and the food-loving Amdavadis who crave and need a delicious home-cooked meal, but somehow do not have access it.

This mobile platform allows home chefs to create a profile and put up theri homemade meals and snacks. Customers looking to enjoy homemade food for lunch, dinner or snacks, can then place their orders on the app.

Once the order is received, the Kamaii home chefs, known as Kamaii Food Partners, start preparing the food from scratch using fresh ingredients. As soon as the order is ready, a Kamaii Rider Partner picks up the order from the Kamaii Food Partner’s home and delivers it to the doorstep of customers.

The variety of food options on the app include Gujarati meals, Punjabi thalis, Rajasthani cuisine, freshly baked goodies, popular local snacks & even desserts.

This app is available for both Android and iOS users and can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and App Store.

Objectives of the brand

A lot of homes lost their source of earning post-pandemic. One of the main objectives of the brand Kamaii is to provide a platform for home chefs to use their cooking skills and to earn extra income or “Kamaii” for their family. The other fallout of the pandemic was that a lot of people, such as students, senior citizens and even office and factory-workers were left without access to a fresh, home-cooked meal, which is a basic necessity. Through Kamaii, the brand also tries to solve this problem of accessibility to healthy and fresh home cooked meals..

According to the client, Kamaii brings people together for the joy of enjoying fresh homemade meals that are prepared with passion!

Challenges with the Brand/Observations by Flora Fountain

Brand name connect. The end-user had to understand the idea behind the name itself. Kamaii, in Hindi and Gujarati, means ‘Earning’. While the app is actually a food ordering app. So, we had to decipher and break down the connection for the user.

Brand name searchability. There was an additional ‘i’ at the end of the name, which was something not many knew about, and made it difficult for people to find it on the various app stores.

Inconsistency in brand messaging. Every platform had a different description for the app and the brand. This could be misleading for potential customers, partners and clients.

Communicating to different audiences. Kamaii had two audiences it needed to target. One needed to target home chefs so they could be made aware of the platform, its earning potential and on-boarded, second was the end-user who had to be made aware about the app usage, download and USPs such fresh made-to-order home-cooked food. There is also a third smaller TG and app connecting delivery partners. The messaging to each of these groups was being done the same way, without speaking to any of them.

Strong brand voice/identity missing. Because of the undefined target audience, improper language use and inconsistency in messaging, the brand lacked a uniform and distinctive voice. Right from the messaging on social media to the app bios and descriptions on multiple platforms, to the videos uploaded on YouTube.

Digital Branding Solutions provided by Flora Fountain as the best social media marketing company in Ahmedabad, India

      • Brand PositioningWe redefined the way the brand is being positioned in the market. Since people were confused by the unique name and the similarity in the services offered to that of other food delivery apps, we focused instead on the human touch, clearly demarcating the mission, vision and services of the brand across various digital platforms.
      • Social Media MarketingSocial media was one of the first places where we swung into action, which gave the brand a fresh look and feel through upgraded and consistent designs and simple but well-written content.
        first grid on Kamaii
        We reintroduced the brand, showcasing the people behind Kamaii, the home chefs, and the various Indian homemade delicacies they prepare every day and even for special occasions.

        One of the more popular campaigns we ran recently was the De Thaali campaign, centered around one of their most ordered products on the app, the lunch thaali, by running a quirky yet relatable series of posts around it, highlighting the low price point, the various types of thaali and the various offering available in a thaali.

      • Content clean up, improvement and creationOne of the most important parts of this exercise was the clean-up and improvement of the content put out for the brand, across platforms. Right from the bio on Instagram, to the messaging that goes out on the app through notifications, we rewrote and restructured the entire brand communication strategy for Kamaii.

        The reason was simple, our research revealed that people who use the app aren’t looking to read lengthy prose, they simply want information about the product, and easy to understand messaging.

        Once the existing content was fixed, we created newer pieces of content, to communicate with the audience such as newsletters, additional notifications and a website revamp, all of which is now in the works.

      • Product ShootWe eat with our eyes first. And with that exact thought, we directed a full-fledged photoshoot of almost every best-selling item from the app. The shoot was directed by our inhouse team, and the venue was Kamaii’s office itself, helping save costs and time!
      • Packaging DesignThe initial packaging was the standard rectangular cardboard box which had a faded print of the logo and sometimes even plain brand-less packaging. We designed a new food parcel box jacket, using the brand colours and smarter design and content reiterating the message of fresh, home cooked meals for highly reasonable rates. We even designed t-shirts for the delivery partners, so that the app was being marketed even as they were on the road.

    Packaging Design

    • Newspaper & Radio AdvertisingAs the best marketing agency in Ahmedabad, we still swear by the power of traditional marketing. For the “De Thaali” campaign we planned and executed a multi-channel advertising campaign across newspaper, radio and digital platforms. The ads in the newspaper were created in Gujarati and English and run across prominent local language newspapers, in tandem with a full-fledged radio campaign and digital campaign across a period of three weeks. Finally ending in one of the founder’s being interviewed about the brand on radio.

[soc_slider_shortcode id=”3172″]

Results

More reach

social media reach report
From a subdued reach, the Instagram and Facebook pages of Kamaii saw an exponential jump of 495% and 686% respectively. This, thanks to the relatable content, and targeted promotional activity done on a regular basis.

More downloads

During the period of January 2021 to August 2021, the mobile app downloads were just 1975 and the active customers were a measly 34 people. But ever since we began actively promoting app downloads with attractive promotional campaigns, the number jumped to 8481 downloads, an increase of 6506 downloads.

More orders

During the period of January 2021 to August 2021, the orders on the Kamaii App stood at just 38. But thanks to engaging content marketing and attractive offers on social media, the orders from September 2021 to March 2022 stood at 6490, of which 5082 were new customers.

Some more interesting facts

Apart from the above, now over 1600 customers repeatedly order from the app, the value of the orders placed till date has now reached Rs.7,85,600

Client speak

Kamaii_Team_2

We joined hands with Flora Fountain for the branding, digital strategy & social media management of our brand, Kamaii. While we had heard good words about them in the market, we were mighty impressed with their commitment to our brand, their professional approach & their flexibility in ideas & execution. Thorough research, an understanding of the brand & the market & the ideas that connect, Flora Fountain has ensured that our brand has started connecting with the right audience in the city.

Working with them has seemed more like a friendly partnership, than a client-agency relationship. We highly recommend them to all businesses that are looking to work with a committed & intelligent team of professionals.

Impressed? This could be the story of your brand too. At Flora Fountain, WE LOVE PROBLEMS! Come down to our office for a cup of coffee, served with a side of kickass ideas and strategy for your brand. Drop us a hello on hello@florafountain.in today to schedule a meeting.

Categories
Digital Marketing Agency

Tap into your loyal customer base & boost sales with remarketing in digital marketing

remarketing in digital marketing

The smooth & delicious Cold Brew is back.
Sleepy Owl is celebrating summer with Cold Brew on discount.
Use code SUMMERISBACK.
Hurry now: https://bit.ly/35XUycs

No, we haven’t pivoted into selling coffee from being a creative advertising agency in Ahmedabad or a digital marketing agency!

But, we’re sure that the above text did remind you of having seen something familiar, either as a text message, email or push notification on the phone. This is an example of a brand trying to lure back its existing customers to keep shopping with them regularly.

This is the brand ‘remarketing’ itself to stay relevant, maintain a loyal customer base and keep the sales going. The example here is of a prominent Indian coffee brand pitching one of its popular summer brews as soon as the weather started getting hotter.

Sleepy Owl is celebrating summer with Cold Brew on discount

BUT, WHAT IS REMARKETING?

Remarketing is a type of marketing activity that focuses on consumers who have previously shown interest in the brand. This interest could be in the form of a visit to the brand’s website, following it on social media marketing, or clicking on any of its ads online.

The idea behind remarketing is to reach out to the most receptive audience and utilize that interest towards the company’s goal like boosting sales with digital marketing. At the core, rekindling the audience’s interest and drawing them back, has more chances of conversions and helps the brand build a loyal audience base.

And before unravelling how to increase sales through digital remarketing, it is important to talk about retargeting.

REMARKETING VS RETARGETING

Remarketing is sometimes considered retargeting. Yes, they do sound eerily similar and both help to boost sales with digital marketing, but there is a slight difference.

Retargeting is usually done to serve ads across various platforms, such as social media and Google Ads Network, to potential customers based on their past interactions on digital mediums with the brand.

Remarketing is reaching out to users and website visitors through messages and emails, by making a sales pitch, with the help of the contact information shared by them while subscribing or while making a purchase earlier.

However, over the years, remarketing has become an umbrella term, of which retargeting is a part alongside the many other marketing activities which engage existing customers and previous visitors.

So how to increase sales through digital marketing targeted to the present customer base?

How to increase sales through digital remarketing

Let us understand this using an example of a remarketing activity that Flora Fountain performed to boost sales with digital marketing as the top digital marketing agency in Ahmedabad for one of our ecommerce clients.

Suppose, Sujith visited www.falguni.shop, the ecommerce website of Falguni Gruh Udhyog, a well-known farsan and snack store in Ahmedabad. He made some purchases and chose to get them delivered to his friend living in New Delhi.

Now, to complete the purchase, Sujith is required to create a profile on the website, hence providing his email ID and contact number. Secondly, for the delivery to be successful, he will be required to provide his friend’s information, like name, address, email ID and contact number.

Jump to a week later. Both Sujith, who is a direct customer for www.falguni.shop, and his friend, an indirect consumer, receive an email that looked something like the one below:

Falguni Gruh Udhyog, a famous farsan and snack store in Ahmedabad

While Sujith ignored the email, it piqued his friend’s interest and later that day, the indirect consumer, ended up visiting the ecommerce website and making a purchase.

And that is how to increase sales through digital marketing or remarketing to be specific! This way you too can boost your sales from digital remarketing.

TYPES OF REMARKETING

You can increase sales through digital marketing with any of the following strategies:

EMail and SMS Remarketing

Customers who have previously purchased anything from the brand’s website or subscribed to the newsletter are the target of this strategy. The brand reaches out to them through tailored text messages or emails with specific offers relevant to them, such as promotions or discounts comparable to what they purchased or showed interest in the past.

This list of customers/users can be segmented too. They can be grouped as:

  • Customers who bought a similar product in the past
  • Customers who added products but abandoned their cart before checkout
  • Customers who looked at a product that wasn’t in stock at the time

This type of focused remarketing increases the chances of conversion.

Display Ads on third-party sites

The most prevalent way to boost sales with digital marketing to previously existing customers is by displaying third-party ads.

It entails reaching out through paid marketing, notably display ads on third-party websites, to users who have visited the brand’s website.

Display Ads on third party sites

There are many platforms to run such display remarketing campaigns, and Google Ads is one of the top and most used platforms.

These platforms track the traffic to the brand’s website using cookies and then target users who visited the site with ads for the products and services of the brand.

Display ads appear on websites that are connected to the ad network the brand is using. If a brand uses Google Ads, then its display ads will appear to users when they visit sites that are part of the Google Display Network.

Push notifications

Push notifications

The take on push notifications on ‘how to increase sales through digital marketing’ is the most interesting and perhaps the most personalised one.

These messages exist for both mobile and desktop devices and can be sent either manually or automatically to contact website or app visitors, whose personal information the brand may not have access to.

For instance, if someone who visited a site or opened an app leaves it halfway, a message can be sent to the user’s browser or device encouraging him/her to return to the site and finish the purchase or revisit the site.

Mobile apps even use this method to create recall, engage with users and pitch offers to the user with the idea of drawing them back to the app and making a purchase.

The best part about it is that no matter what the user is doing on the computer or mobile phone, the message will appear as a pop-up notification on the screen, until he/she either clicks it away or opens it, hence there is no ignoring it.

FAQs

Q1 How Does Remarketing Work?
Remarketing works by using cookies, which are small text files that are stored on a user’s computer or device when they visit a website. These cookies allow brands to track a user’s browsing behaviour and target them with ads as they continue to browse the web.

Q2 What are some benefits of Remarketing?
Boosting sales with digital marketing, increasing conversions, enhancing brand awareness, and improving targeting, are a few benefits of Remarketing.

Q3 How does remarketing impact consumer privacy?
Remarketing relies on the use of cookies to track user behaviour, which has raised concerns about consumer privacy. However, most remarketing platforms allow users to opt out of seeing targeted ads or delete their cookie data if they choose to do so. Additionally, many remarketing platforms adhere to industry standards for data privacy and provide transparency around their data collection practices.

Q4 What are the best ways to increase sales through digital remarketing?
Some of the best practices for remarketing include:

  • Defining your target audience
  • Creating targeted messaging and ads
  • Using compelling ad creative
  • Highlighting your USPs and encouraging CTAs
  • Setting a frequency to avoid overexposure and ad fatigue
  • monitoring and optimising your campaign performance

In Conclusion

Remarketing can be a powerful tool for brands looking to boost sales with digital marketing strategies targeted at previous customers.

Sounds interesting? Getting ideas about how your brand can benefit from remarketing? Get started by dropping us a “hi” at hello@florafountain.in.

Get the best digital marketing company in Ahmedabad, India to back you and your brand in this crowded marketplace that is the Internet.

Categories
Social Media

Engage with them! How interactive content helps a brand grow online

How interactive content helps a brand grow online

Pick 6 Horror Movies and We’ll Guess Your Biggest Fear with 98% Accuracy
Heels or Flats: How do you dress to impress on date night?

We all have come across such articles on the internet. And in most cases, have clicked on the link and answered all the questions, either out of curiosity or interest in the brand. This is interactive content at play, on web and social media.

What is interactive content?

Any form of content that encourages the user or follower to not just passively consume content, but participate and interact with the brand, is called interactive content. It can include quizzes, surveys, polls, riddles and calculators added into articles, social media posts and stories.

It is an interesting and fun approach to connect and interact with the customer, pick her brain on what they think about the brand, its products and in some cases, even collect data from them for future marketing activities. And anything more than just reading text is always more engaging.

In order to provide the best social media marketing services in Ahmedabad, Flora Fountain has always believed that content must engage, educate and delight the brand’s user.

BuzzFeed – Killing it on the internet with interaction

Everyone knows BuzzFeed. While there might be different reasons why people like them, the one thing that makes them stand out in the market in terms of content, are their interactive posts, quizzes and surveys. According to BuzzFeed, 96% of users who start their sponsored quiz, complete it. That is a very high completion rate!

buzzfeed-landing-page

And the brand has been successful in generating engagement, user interaction and data collection because their content targets specific audiences, it is created to be mobile-friendly and incorporates a lot of visual elements.

It’s very simple, create content that makes storytelling a conversation, rather than one-way communication, where the consumer is only reading and gaining information but cannot interact back.

Like, this FRIENDS S1-based quiz that takes one on a nostalgic trip back to the teens. What’s fun is that they become addictive after a point.

Benefits of interactive content

Increases consumer engagement

When a brand creates any form of interactive content, it is seeking its users’ opinion about the topic. It shows that the brand truly values the consumer and they are open to accepting their users’ ideas, thoughts, and feedback.

Instagram-reel

And no, it’s not rocket science to create engaging content online. And one of the best examples of it is this great use of the Poll Stickers feature by youth fashion brand Forever21 about their footwear trends.

More attention from the audience

When a brand regularly creates interesting interactive content on their social media platforms, it creates a great recall value in the minds of its followers and users. They begin to participate in the quizzes, puzzles and polls regularly and look forward to the next such post.

One such example is of Falguni Vastrapur on Instagram. Its digital marketing company in Ahmedabad regularly creates funny, engagement inducing content on its Instagram pages.

word-puzzal

Most of the participants in their comments are their customers, who are delighted that their favourite snack brand interacts with them like their next door friendly neighbour.

More data captured for optimised lead generation and conversion rates

fusion sweets brand

Interactive content doesn’t always have to be just This or That type of polls and quizzes. They can also be a simple Ask Me Anything (AMA) or DM for Price Request types of questions too.

Ahmedabad-based fusion sweets brand Bellezoe has been known to be keeping its stories interactive in a way that it gets to capture customer data like their social media handles, and in some cases, their contact details too.

With the database of interested users on Instagram, they keep these ‘users’ or prospective customers updated about their latest products, offers and much more.

Types of interactive content

Instagram Polls & Surveys

Instagram is a goldmine of interactive content. Especially its stories, with multiple stickers which offer interactive tools for users to engage with the brand. Some of its popular stickers include the Poll, Question, Rate Me and Link Me.

Some of the top brands from around the world, like Forever 21, Ray Ethnic and local brands like Bellezoe use such stickers to engage with their followers regularly.

Quizzes & Puzzles

As mentioned earlier, BuzzFeed is the champion when it comes to Quizzes. Almost every other media company or brand all over the world uses BuzzFeed’s Quiz template or a modified version of it in their content.

LIVE Q&A sessions

Many celebrities and even brands love using the LIVE feature on Instagram and Facebook to host direct Q&A sessions with their followers in real time.

Some of our favourite LIVE interactive sessions include musician Ehsaan Qureshi’s late-night Instagram LIVEs during the pandemic-induced lockdowns where he’d invite budding artistes and singers to join him on the same screen and perform for his followers. A similar activity was done by the Instagram page Your Food Lab, where the chef would host a Cook With Me with his followers on LIVE, while answering their questions and having fun chats with them.

Calculators

Feed in the data and get to see the results. One of the best and professional ways to interact with consumers and users is to provide them with an easy to use calculator to find out answers to their questions themselves.

It not only improves their engagement with the brand, but increases the chances of them taking the conversation forward and getting converted into a potential sale/business. One of our favourite calculators is the one below, from Ahmedabad-based Investment Advisory firm White Ocean.

sip-dashboard

How to plan your interactive content?

It’s not rocket science. Simply follow this checklist below, created by digital marketers of Flora Fountain, one of the best social media marketing services in Ahmedabad, follow.

    • Outline your objectives clearly
    • Use the language your audience interacts in
    • Keep it simple as you can
    • Keep it mobile friendly
    • Collect & store customer data for future

Easy-peasy? No? Worry not. We’re here for you! Drop us an ‘Allo on hello@florafountain.in and we’ll help you create such amazing, interactive content for your brands too!

Categories
SEO

The Longer the Better! Why Long-Form Content Is Crucial To Effective SEO

Long-Form Content

No two writers will ever agree on the same answer when it comes to long-form content. One argument we as an SEO company offering digital services in Ahmedabad constantly battle with, is that given that the attention span of netizens is getting shorter, we must write shorter, crisp content.

But, what about the readers who wish to attain complete information, in detail from us? And of course, it will hamper the SEO activity since short-form content will never be able to touch the minimum length requirements for it.

Let’s try and understand what exactly do we mean when we say long-form content, and why it still holds importance in content marketing.

What is long-form content?

content marketing experts

There have been multiple definitions of long-form content. While some claim that any blog that crosses the threshold of 700 words is long-form, content marketing experts suggest that informative articles that are more than 1200 words are considered long-form content.

Flora Fountain’s SEO experts have always believed that any blog or article that wishes to rank higher on the search pages, must be of minimum 800 words, and should have all the relevant keywords.

And writing long-form content comes with a plethora of benefits for brands that wish to grab as much attention it wants on the internet. Here’s how…

Gain more backlinks

Backlink
HubSpot graph showing the correlation between content length and backlinks

Google prefers high-quality content and link-building to rant any website on the search engine results page (SERP). And long-form content has a greater probability of earning quality backlinks.

HubSpot, in its research The Anatomy of a Shareable, Linkable & Popular Post found that articles with a word count of over 2500 words earn the most links. Short content on the other hand has 75% fewer backlinks than articles of average length (900–1200 words).

Drives traffic to the site

SEMrush further studied over 700,000 articles to come to a conclusion that articles with more than 3000 words generate 3 times more traffic than articles with 90-1200 words. In another study, HubSpot found that articles with 2,250 to 2,500 words earn the most organic traffic.

Here’s another fun fact that we came across. Founder of NP Digital and prominent digital marketer Neil Patel had clocked over 100,000 visitors every month in the first year itself of launching his website Neil Patel. Wondering how? Well, obviously his content is rich with data, facts and detailed knowledge about digital marketing, but apart from that, his blogs are anywhere close to 4000 words.

The point we’re making here is that when you write quality content in long-form, using the keywords strategically, search engines will definitely rank you higher and drive traffic towards your website.

Raises Click-Through Rate

Click-through-rate (CTR) is the ratio used to gauge how the keywords, advertisements and SEO listings are performing. A simpler way to explain this, is that the number of clicks an ad receives is divided by the number of times it is shown to people online. For instance, if an ad is shown to 100 people, and 5 of these people clicked on the ad, its CTR is 5%.

Search engines use this data to see if a page on a website is informative enough to the users or not. Less clicks means the page is not able to fulfill users’ query. So, they move the page down in the search rankings.

And when writing long-form content, it gives enough room to write compelling headers, description tags, and place multiple keywords on strategic locations of the write-up. These smartly written titles, headers and descriptions, peppered with keywords entice the user to click on it when shown of the SERP. And once pulled in, it can also reroute them into exploring the multiple offerings and pages on the site.

Increases dwell time

Dwell time is the amount of time any visitor spends on a particular site. This metric shows Google if a website or any page on the website is worth spending time on or if that page is fulfilling the needs of the user. If a website has a short dwell time, Google finds it irrelevant to the search query.

Long-form, good quality content gets more eyes on the page. It increases the dwell time as people stay on the page for a longer period of time.

Tips to write long-form content

  • Avoid writing in long-drawn sentences. Break down the information into shorter sentences and then place them into a paragraph.
  • Try listicles (Thank you BuzzFeed). People LOVE lists! Instead of big blocks of paragraphed content, list out the points and write shorter descriptions for them.
  • Set a flow for the content. For instance, decide a specific number of words for the opening, the introduction to the topic. Number the bullet points that cover the soul of the story and again fix a specific number of words for description of each.
  • Add source links to every study and research quoted in the article, helps with the back-linking.
Categories
Ecommerce

Shopify, WooCommerce or Magento: Which is the right ecommerce platform for your online store?

ecommerce platform

Looks like you’ve decided to go digital and sell online! Congratulations! It’s a big step.

But a lot of things right at the start might confuse you. For starters, which ecommerce platform should you start your online journey with? This year everyone seems to be raving about Shopify, last year it was WooCommerce and then someone told you about Magento too. The more you speak with ecommerce website development or digital agencies, the more options there seem to be and the more confusing it gets.
So here’s a definitive guide to understand the pros and cons of using each of these 3 major ecommerce platforms, depending on what, how much and who you are selling to…

So, what is Shopify?

While it might seem new, Shopify has been around as an ecommerce platform since 2007. Despite being a paid only solution, it is the second most popular ecommerce platform with about 20% of the market share. A major reason behind this is that it is a software-sold-as-a-service, which means you don’t have to be a coder to set up a Shopify store.

And Magento?

Magento is the big daddy of customizable e-commerce platforms. It has two services, a free Open Source and a paid Magento Commerce, which like Shopify comes with hosting services. With about 500,000 users, Magento has 10% of the online market, including bigger brands that are into serious online retail of clothes, jewellery and even cars.

And finally we come to WooCommerce?

With 29% of the market share, WooCommerce is the most widely used e-commerce platform. It is actually a plugin for WordPress that extends the functionality of this very popular CMS into an online store.
Still wondering which platform to pick? Read on…

Ease of use

This one is especially important for small business owners, as they end up initially doing a lot of the work on their own.

Ease of use

Of the three, Shopify is the easiest to set up and use. It comes with a managed hosting solution, well-designed themes both free and paid, PCI compliance for payments, and a host of shipping solutions already built by logistics companies – all of which can be integrated without coding knowledge. This means all you have to do is buy a domain, connect it with your Shopify account, select a theme, upload products and get ready to sell online.

This one is especially important for small business owners, as they end up initially doing a lot of the work on their own.

WooCommerce on the other hand requires the user to have their own hosting solution, which needs to be purchased before getting started. So you have to buy your own domain, hosting solution, install WordPress and WooCommerce, before you can start customizing themes or entering products. This makes it not quite as easy as Shopify, however, it does give you more choice in selecting your own server. Because of a vibrant community, WordPress also has a wider selection of free and paid themes available online.

Magento is the platform of developers. While it has its own hosting solution, you can also use the Open Source version and connect it with a server of your choice. Getting Magento set up and customizing it requires developers who have knowledge of PHP and HTML.

Customizability

Customizability is almost inversely proportional to ease of use in this case. With Shopify being the most closed platform and offering the least customization. One can customize CSS for the look and feel of the website and use existing app or create new Shopify apps for certain limited customization. Several workflows like the cart page can not be customized at all in the starting plans.

Customizability

Magento, on the other hand, allows for the most customization from the product page to the payment workflow to the user profiles. For some common functionalities, Magento addons are also available in the marketplace. This is the reason most bigger brands that take online retail seriously, choose Magento.

WooCommerce is also fairly customizable, since it sits on the open-source platform of WordPress that is supported by a thriving community. Most of the features you might want to add are already out there as free or paid extensions to the plugin, created either by WooCommerce creators or the WooCommerce community.

Scalability

Scalability

Magento and Shopify are slightly better suited for large databases of products since they are e-commerce first platforms. With Shopify, while adding products does not impact performance, scaling up does become more expensive as your store grows with more users and transactions.

Scalability of products with WooCommerce is possible, however, since it was created as a content platform, adding too many customizations or products without thoughtful technical architecture can impact performance and slow the website down. As a result, you have to hire WordPress developers who are familiar with optimizing the platform as you scale up.

Security

Shopify’s hosting comes with an SSL certificate and PCI compliance making it watertight and secure. With WordPress and Open Source Magento, you have to purchase your own SSL certificate and keep updating any security patches or extensions that the two platforms release from time to time. This is a fairly common practice for most open source software, so it is not a major concern, however, it does require developer help.

Security

SEO Friendliness

SEO Friendliness

Shopify comes with basic SEO support with the ability to add meta tags, image alt text, generate 301 redirects, automatic XML sitemaps and a blogging feature. However, customizing any of this in the basic plan is not possible.

WooCommerce comes with all the above plus the ability to integrate with mature SEO plugins like Yoast for that extra boost to your store’s SEO, by adding keywords per page, real time suggestions for keywords and more!

Magento being the completely customizable platform that it is allows you to define your own SEO strategy and customize the backend to support all of the above features in Yoast and then some, like canonical tags, Google sitemaps, no follow links and literally anything your SEO expert desires.

Support

Being a paid platform, Shopify has quite an attentive and prompt 24×7 support desk available over email for all plans. It also has a pretty comprehensive documentation and, being the second most-popular platform, a thriving community of developers.

WooCommerce has possibly the biggest community of developers helping each other and clients out. One of the benefits of such a community for smaller businesses is that you can hire a WooCommerce developer for parts of the project or some specific functionality quite easily from these forums.

Support

Moreover, pretty much anything you imagine in WooCommerce has probably already been done and put out as a plugin by someone in the community!

Magento is a mixed bag. While Magento Open Source has a community like WooCommerce, Magento Commerce provides prompt support for its paid users, similar to Shopify.

Pricing
Pricing

Shopify provides three different plans ranging from $29 to $299, which includes hosting services. If you are going for a paid theme, this can cost anything up to $180. And finally, there is a transaction fee anywhere from 0.5-2% depending on your Shopify plan. This makes it ideal for a beginner user, but a little more expensive as you scale up and increase your transactions.

WooCommerce and WordPress are essentially free of cost, however, you end up paying for your own server and SSL certificate. Any plugins required for additional functionality should also be factored in.

Magento Open Source is similar to WooCommerce in being open source and requiring server and SSL. Magento Commerce however is for serious online players since its licensing fee starts at $22,000.

The Final Word

To conclude, if you are just starting out online with a limited monthly budget and a whole lot of DIY spirit Shopify is perhaps your best bet. You can play around with themes, make minor changes to the look and feel, add a payment gateway, integrate with a shipping provider, add products and get started within a few weeks, even days.

However, if you plan to build a slightly more customized website and have the financial bandwidth to hire 1 or 2 developers, WordPress with WooCommerce, can work better for you.

For bigger organizations with a long-term online vision, thousands upon thousands of customized products and a free hand with budgets, Magento is the most future proof and customizable solution.

Need more guidance getting started with setting up your own e-commerce store? Get in touch with Flora Fountain, we are good listeners and even better problem-solvers for all your digital marketing and e-commerce needs. Call now, for a free consultation for your online business.

Categories
Social Media

Digital Crisis Management During Corona [COVID-19] | 10 Steps To Maintain Your Business’ Digital Health

Business’ Digital Health 3

As the world fights a pandemic, it becomes all the bit more essential for a business person to innovate different ways to educate their customers. While everyone is focusing on cost control and reducing marketing activities, here’s how a smart business person can make a huge difference while being at home during the Corona [COVID-19] lockdown by following these 10 simple steps.

1. Website Health:

Check whether you website is working as it should be. Remember your website is your digital store and it is now more important to maintain an A-game. Hence check all the pages, specially your contact us or any other enquiry form.

2. Branding & Reputation:

Once you are through with website checklist, ask yourself, “Why did I build this website?” I am sure like most of us the answer is, to market your product and services. But during the CO-VID 19 lockdown 90% businesses can not sell because of logistical challenges. At this point we can focus on proper branding and reputation management.

social media platform

3. Which Platform to target?

To do proper branding or marketing you must be visible to the world out there on social media platforms and hence it is important to play to your strengths and identify which platforms to target. For example, jewellers’ best bet is to be on a visual social media platform like Instagram or Pinterest. Those in the counselling sector should focus on creating engagement through Instagram and blogs. While, those in the B2B segments should focus on disseminating information via blogs on website, LinkedIn and newsletters.

4. Ask yourself where is my audience?

It is important to understand and create audience profiling. Age, sex, interest, geography and income are some important factors to consider. Instagram is for younger millenials, Facebook is a community based application and has a mixed audience of slightly older people, YouTube is a video based application which focuses on awareness & education, Twitter is ideal for user engagement and feedback, LinkedIn is perfect for B2B, Pinterest is for portfolio building and for ideas, while Tiktok is used to target small-town and suburban audiences through video.

5. Optimize the profile/page

If you are a small business then creating an id or a profile is advisable versus creating a page on Facebook. If you are a comparatively established brand then create a page on Facebook and a profile on other platforms such as Instagram. Optimize your profile by mentioning all the details about the company, such a bio, contact details, Google Map location etc.

Facebook profile page

6. Follow the right influencers

In order to create a strategy for your brand you need to remain up-to-date with the latest trends of the industry and to what actually attracts people. Following the right influencers (people who know the industry and influence buying decisions) can sometime lead to collaborations, when the opportunity is right.

Content share

7. Share content regularly

Content is king everywhere, including social media. Content is what we put out and what gets shared on social media platforms. This can be a combination of Image, Text or Video. Remember, don’t get too technical and don’t try to sell immediately. Educate your followers about your product, the industry, the benefits of using the product or service etc.

8. Use proper hashtags

In order to grow followers on Instagram and Twitter you need to reach the maximum audience and that can be done by using proper hashtags in your post caption. In Instagram, you can use any number of hashtags between 3 to 30 in your copy as well as comment section. To get familiar with trending hashtags related to your business visit www.all-hashtag.com

9. Interact with your followers

All successful brands must care about their followers. This care can be shown in many ways. Sometimes a simple “thank you” can convert a commenter into a follower into a fan and eventually a future buyer. Communication is an essential tool once your page or profile is up and running.

10. Be patient

Remind yourself that you are here to educate and spread awareness about your product/services. Don’t be impatient by pressurising yourself to generate leads or business in initial months. If you follow the above 9 points diligently then slowly, but surely, business is bound to happen.

To know more about Flora Fountain and our social media marketing services, begin your journey here www.florafountain.com