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The Bottom Line: How a D2C Strategy Can Boost Revenue Growth for Indian Hotels

murli on April 14, 2023

The Indian hospitality industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. Despite the pandemic’s setbacks, Indian hotels are slowly getting back on track, but revenue growth remains a crucial challenge. So, how can Indian hotels boost their revenue growth in a competitive market?

Enter Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) strategy – a game-changer for the hospitality industry. So, what exactly is a D2C strategy, and how can it boost revenue growth for Indian hotels? In simple terms, a D2C strategy means hotels can engage with their guests directly without any involvement of intermediaries.

Hotels can offer competitive rates, personalise the guest experience and build brand loyalty, ultimately leading to revenue growth. Don’t worry if you don’t understand it because we will dive deep into this topic.

This article will focus on how a D2C strategy can help Indian hotels boost their revenue growth and become market leaders. From enhancing the guest experience to building brand loyalty, we’ll explore the benefits of a D2C strategy and how Indian hotels can leverage it to stay ahead in a competitive market.

Understanding D2C Strategy

A Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) strategy is a business model that enables companies to sell their products or services directly to their consumers without intermediaries. In the Indian hospitality industry, a D2C strategy means hotels can engage with their guests directly without the involvement of any online travel agencies.

For Indian hotels, implementing a D2C strategy can be a game-changing move for revenue growth. By cutting down the role of intermediaries, hotels and accommodation providers can offer more competitive rates to their customers, resulting in more direct bookings and revenue growth.

Moreover, by engaging with guests directly, hotels can gather data on their preferences and tailor their services to meet their individual needs. All this can lead to increased guest satisfaction and loyalty.

Advantages of D2C Strategy

A Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) strategy can significantly benefit the Indian hotels and accommodation providers that are looking to quickly launch and test new products, grow their business and ultimately increase revenue growth. Here’s how they might be able to achieve this:

Quicker Time-to-Market

With the help of a D2C strategy, hotels in India can find an alternative to traditional distribution channels and sell directly to customers. This allows them to launch new products more quickly and with fewer barriers.

For example, if a hotel wants to introduce a new service, it can do so without having to go through a lengthy process of getting it approved by a third-party distributor or retailer. All this can lead to revenue growth.

Better Customer Insights

D2C strategy allows hotels to interact with customers directly and gather valuable real-time insights into their preferences, needs, and behaviour. This data can then be used to predict customer behaviour and tailor products and services to meet customer demands. It can result in higher customer satisfaction and increased loyalty.

Higher Profit Margins

Selling directly to the customers means that hotels can eliminate the middlemen and capture a larger share of the profit margin. All this can lead to revenue growth and higher profits.

Agility and Flexibility

D2C enables hotels in India to adapt quickly to changing market conditions and consumer demands. For instance, if there is a sudden surge in demand for a particular type of product or service, the hotel can respond quickly and offer it to customers.

Brand Building

D2C strategies can help hotels in India to build a strong brand identity and establish a direct relationship with customers. By delivering high-quality products and services and providing excellent customer support, hotels can create a loyal audience that can drive repeat business and referrals.

Brands that Implemented D2C Strategies

Now that we have a good understanding of what D2C is and how it can benefit businesses in the hospitality industry, let us take a look at some of the brands that have successfully implemented this strategy and achieved revenue growth:

OYO Rooms

One could say that OYO Rooms is the most famous hotel chain in India that offers budget accommodation. In 2019, the company launched a D2C platform called OYO Wizard, which aimed to offer members discounts on room rates, free breakfast, and other perks. Within six months of launch, OYO Wizard had attracted over 1 million members and contributed to a 25% revenue growth for the company.

Treebo Hotels

Just like OYO Rooms, Treebo Hotels is another Indian budget hotel chain that has implemented a D2C strategy. It allowed their customers to earn points for every booking they make on the Treebo website or app.

These points can then be redeemed for discounts on future bookings. By offering rewards to customers for booking directly on its platform, Treebo aims to reduce its dependence on third-party online travel agencies (OTAs), increase direct bookings, and lead to revenue growth.

FabHotels

FabHotels is a popular chain of budget hotels that primarily caters to business travellers. The company has also implemented a D2C strategy to reduce its reliance on OTAs. FabHotels launched its own mobile app, which allows customers to book rooms directly on the app. The app also offers exclusive discounts and deals for users, incentivising them to book directly through the app. All in all, this marketing strategy has helped FabHotels increase customer satisfaction and revenue growth.

Lemon Tree Hotels

Lemon Tree Hotels is a mid-range hotel chain that operates across India. The company has implemented a D2C strategy through its website and mobile app, allowing customers to book rooms directly.

All these case studies demonstrate how D2C strategies can be highly effective in driving revenue growth for businesses in the Indian hospitality industry. By offering customers a direct relationship with the brand and tailored benefits, these companies have been able to differentiate themselves from the competition and build a loyal customer base.

D2C Strategies for Revenue Growth

Direct-to-consumer (D2C) strategies can be an effective way for Indian hotels to boost revenue growth by reducing their dependence on online travel agencies (OTAs) and increasing direct bookings. Here are some D2C strategies that Indian hotels can adopt:

Offer Exclusive Discounts and Deals

Hotels can offer exclusive discounts and deals to customers who book directly through their website or mobile app. These offers can be targeted towards loyal customers, early bookers, or customers who have abandoned their booking. By offering these discounts and deals, hotels can incentivise customers to book directly on their platform rather than through OTAs.

Implement a Loyalty Program

Hotels can implement a loyalty program that rewards customers for booking directly through their platform. These rewards can include discounts on future bookings, free upgrades, and other exclusive benefits. A loyalty program can help hotels build a loyal customer base, increase repeat bookings, and reduce customer churn.

Focus on Customer Experience

Hotels can differentiate themselves from OTAs by offering a superior customer experience. This can include personalised recommendations, 24/7 customer support, and a user-friendly booking process. By providing a superior customer experience, hotels can build customer loyalty and increase direct bookings.

Leverage Social Media

Hotels can leverage social media to engage with customers, promote their brand, and drive direct bookings. This can include targeted social media ads, influencer marketing, and user-generated content. By building a strong social media presence, hotels can increase brand awareness and drive direct bookings.

Invest in Technology

Hotels can invest in technology to improve their online booking platform, offer personalised recommendations, and streamline their operations. This can include implementing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies to offer personalised recommendations and implementing a mobile app to enable seamless booking on the go.

Things to Keep in Mind

While implementing a direct-to-consumer (D2C) strategy for Indian hotels, there are several important things to keep in mind:

1. Understand Your Target Audience: Before implementing a D2C strategy, it’s important to understand your target audience and their booking patterns. This can help you tailor your strategy to their needs and preferences.

2. Offer Value to Customers: Customers are more likely to book directly on your platform if they see value in doing so. This can include offering exclusive discounts and deals, personalised recommendations, and a superior customer experience.

3. Leverage Technology: Investing in technology can help hotels streamline their operations, offer personalised recommendations, and provide a seamless booking experience for customers. This may include implementing an AI-powered chatbot, mobile app, and other advanced technologies.

4. Monitor and Analyse Data: It’s important to monitor and analyse data on a regular basis to understand how your D2C strategy is performing. This can include tracking metrics such as conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and customer lifetime value.

5. Build Customer Trust: Building trust with customers is crucial for driving direct bookings. This can include offering transparent pricing, providing a secure booking experience, and responding promptly to customer inquiries and complaints.

6. Focus on Branding: A strong brand can help differentiate your hotel from competitors and increase customer loyalty. This can include investing in branding initiatives such as social media marketing, influencer partnerships, and user-generated content.

Final Words

Adopting a direct-to-consumer (D2C) strategy can be a game-changer for Indian hotels looking to boost revenue growth. By cutting down the intermediaries and increasing direct bookings, hotels can build a loyal customer base and ultimately lead to revenue growth.

To implement a successful D2C strategy, hotels need to understand their target audience, offer value to customers, leverage technology, monitor and analyse data, build customer trust, and focus on branding.

Adaan Digital Solutions is a digital marketing agency that can help businesses in the hospitality industry adopt D2C strategies and achieve revenue growth with ease. Their services include mobile and app development, internet marketing, and social media marketing.

With their expertise and experience, Adaan Digital Solutions can help hotels develop a comprehensive D2C strategy that aligns with their business goals and drives revenue growth. Whether it’s developing a mobile app, optimising online booking platforms, or running targeted social media campaigns, Adaan Digital Solutions can provide the tools and support hotels need to succeed in the competitive hospitality industry.

By partnering with Adaan Digital Solutions, hotels can take their D2C strategy to the next level and achieve sustainable revenue growth.

FAQs

What is a D2C strategy for hotels?

A D2C (direct-to-consumer) strategy for hotels involves reducing dependence on online travel agencies and increasing direct bookings from customers. This can include offering exclusive discounts and deals, implementing a loyalty program, investing in technology, and focusing on customer experience and branding.

Why is a D2C strategy important for Indian hotels?

A D2C strategy is important for Indian hotels as it can help them increase revenue growth, reduce their reliance on OTAs, and build a loyal customer base. By offering exclusive deals and discounts to customers who book directly, hotels can incentivise them to book on their platform and increase revenue growth.

What are the benefits of a D2C strategy for hotels?

The benefits of a D2C strategy for hotels include revenue growth, increased customer loyalty, reduced customer churn, and a competitive edge over other hotels. By building a strong brand, offering personalised recommendations, and providing a superior customer experience, hotels can differentiate themselves from OTAs and attract more direct bookings.

What are the challenges of implementing a D2C strategy for hotels?

The challenges of implementing a D2C strategy for hotels include the need for significant investment in technology, the need to understand customer behaviour and preferences, and the need to build trust with customers. Hotels may also face competition from OTAs and other hotels that offer similar incentives for direct bookings.

How can digital marketing agencies help hotels with their D2C strategy?

Digital marketing agencies such as Adaan Digital Solutions can help hotels with their D2C strategy by offering services such as mobile and app development, internet marketing, and social media marketing. These agencies can help hotels build a strong online presence, optimise their booking platforms, and run targeted marketing campaigns to attract more direct bookings.

The Future of Hospitality: Why Indian Hotels Need a D2C Strategy

pradeep on April 10, 2023

The hospitality industry in India is growing at a rapid pace with rising demand from both international and domestic tourists. Since this industry is highly competitive, hotels must constantly seek innovative ways to stay ahead. Traditional marketing strategies often rely on advertising and promotional campaigns to reach a broader audience.

While these tactics may be effective in creating brand awareness, they may be less effective in generating direct sales and building long-term customer relationships. Therefore, there is a need for a more modern and refined strategy to engage specific customer segments and increase customer loyalty.

Enter D2C strategy.

Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) is a marketing strategy that can give hotels in India a competitive edge by allowing them to reach and engage with customers directly. With the rise of digital marketing and e-commerce platforms, a D2C strategy can enable hotels to build their brand, enhance customer loyalty, and ultimately boost revenue.

What Exactly is a D2C Strategy?

D2C strategy refers to the approach where businesses aim to sell their products or services directly to the customers without intermediaries. With the help of this marketing strategy, hotels, and accommodation providers can offer their services directly to customers through digital channels such as websites, mobile apps, and social media platforms.

This marketing strategy can be an effective way for the hospitality industry in India to enhance guest satisfaction and increase revenue. It can allow hospitality businesses to establish a close relationship with their customers and cut down the intermediaries such as online travel agencies.

This may result in a higher customer lifetime value and an increase in positive word-of-mouth referrals. Now that we have a basic idea of what a D2C strategy is, let us now look at the benefits of this strategy for the hospitality industry in detail.

Benefits of D2C Strategy for Indian Hotels

In this crowded industry, the quality of services is the defining feature of a successful brand. Its success is also dependent on a customer-centric design strategy. In India, going digital first can be cost-effective and time-efficient to grow a brand.

In the case of the hospitality industry, the D2C strategy has become an increasingly popular strategy. This section will discuss the key benefits of the D2C strategy for Indian hotels.

Increased Revenue

D2C strategy can allow hotels and accommodation providers to sell rooms, packages, and other services directly to customers, generating direct sales and consequently increasing revenue. Moreover, by eliminating intermediaries, hotels can keep the profit margins for themselves and offer competitive prices to customers.

Enhanced Customer Experience

D2C strategy allows hotels to develop a personalized and direct relationship with their customers. This relationship can allow businesses in the hospitality industry to better understand customer needs and preferences, enabling them to offer personalized experiences. Hospitality businesses can also receive feedback directly from customers and make necessary changes to improve customer satisfaction.

Brand Loyalty

By gaining valuable insights from the collected data, hospitality businesses can offer a personalized experience to their customers, and hotels can build brand loyalty. Satisfied customers are more likely to return to the hotel for future stays and recommend it to others. D2C strategy allows hotels to promote their brand, values, and unique offerings directly to customers.

Greater Control over the Customer Journey

The D2C strategy enables the hotels and accommodation providers to control the customer journey from start to finish. From the booking process to check-out, hospitality businesses can offer a seamless experience for customers. By having greater control over the customer journey, hotels can ensure that customers have a positive experience and are more likely to return.

Access to Customer Data

In today’s time, data is one of the biggest assets that a business can have, and this marketing strategy makes use of that. The D2C strategy allows hospitality businesses to collect customer data, which is vital in understanding customer behavior and preferences.

Hotels and accommodation providers can use this data to improve their services, marketing, and customer service. This data can also be used to organize targeted marketing campaigns and offer personalized promotions to customers.

Lower Costs

By eliminating intermediaries, hospitality businesses in India can cut costs associated with commissions and fees. D2C strategy allows hotels to keep more of the revenue generated from bookings and other services. This extra revenue may also be invested in hotel upgrades, improving in-house services, and staff training.

Rise of D2C in the Pandemic

The far-reaching implications of COVID-19 caused many businesses to conduct comprehensive portfolio reviews and rethink their route to long-term growth. While there has been a gradual shift towards consumer empowerment in recent years, COVID-19 significantly accelerated this trend by requiring businesses to transform their business models and seek “future-proofing.”

In the wake of the pandemic, one recurring theme was the need for a stronger direct-to-consumer (D2C) presence, even in industries that have historically depended on B2B and intermediary channels. COVID-19 accelerated D2C adoption, necessitating direct customer interaction for many Fortune 500 businesses. Direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands have been able to pivot and adapt during the pandemic in a number of ways, including:

  • Shifting to e-commerce: Many D2C brands were already operating online, but the pandemic accelerated the shift to e-commerce as the retail stores closed. Brands that were able to quickly ramp up their online presence and offer delivery or pickup options were able to continue selling their products and grow their business even during the pandemic.
  • Offering new products or services: During the COVID-19 pandemic, many brands not only adopted the D2C strategy but also pivoted to offer new products or services that were in high demand during the pandemic. For example, many wellness brands started offering hand sanitizer, and some clothing brands shifted to making masks.
  • Focusing on digital marketing: With people spending more time online during the pandemic, D2C brands that focused on digital marketing and social media were able to reach a broad range of customers and generate sales. Moreover, the brands that were already active on social media were able to quickly adapt their messaging to address the pandemic and connect with customers.
  • Adapting supply chains: The pandemic disrupted supply chains worldwide, but the brands that were following the D2C strategy or shifted to it could adapt by finding new suppliers or by producing products locally.

Key D2C Strategies for Hotels in India

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted businesses in India and around the world. During this time, the rise of Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) brands is one of the most fruitful and notable outcomes. Today’s hospitality industry can learn and definitely adopt some of the key strategies used by D2C brands to improve their business model and better connect with customers. Here are a few ideas:

Develop a Strong online presence

The D2C strategy aims to build a robust online presence, with a focus on creating engaging websites, social media accounts, and other digital channels. The hospitality industry can follow suit by developing an engaging website, using social media to promote their business, and leveraging other online channels to reach customers directly.

Gather Customer Data

D2C brands are known for their ability to gather valuable customer data, which they use to personalize their marketing messages and improve their products. The hospitality industry can follow this approach by gathering data on customer preferences, booking behaviour, and other metrics that can be used to improve the customer experience.

Offer Personalized Experiences

D2C brands often offer personalized experiences to customers based on their preferences and behaviour. The hospitality industry in India can adopt this strategy and offer customized recommendations to customers based on their past bookings, interests, and other data.

Focus on Customer Feedback

D2C brands rely heavily on customer feedback to improve their products and services. The hospitality industry can follow this approach by soliciting customer feedback after their stay and using this information to make improvements and address any customer concerns.

Streamline the Booking Process

The D2C strategy aims to offer a seamless, streamlined booking process focusing on convenience and ease of use. The hospitality industry can improve its booking process by providing online booking options, easy-to-use reservation systems, and other tools that make it easier for customers to book their stay.

Future of Hotels in India

The hospitality industry in India is rapidly evolving, and Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) strategy is becoming more crucial than ever. With the rise of online booking platforms and increasing competition, every business needs to adopt an efficient D2C strategy to stay competitive and meet customers’ changing needs.

As we already discussed, one of the key benefits of a D2C strategy is that it allows hotels to build direct relationships with customers. By gathering customer preferences, behaviour, and feedback data, hotels can tailor personalized services to individual customers, creating a more engaging and relevant experience.

D2C strategies also offer hotels and accommodation providers greater control over the customer experience, which is increasingly important in an industry where customer satisfaction is vital. By controlling the booking process and other aspects of the customer journey, hotels can ensure that customers have a seamless and enjoyable experience from start to finish.

All in all, the future of hospitality lies in adopting a D2C strategy. With the right approach, businesses in the hospitality industry can build direct relationships with customers, offer personalized experiences, and control the customer journey to ensure optimal satisfaction. It’s time to embrace the D2C strategy and stay ahead of the competition.

Final Words

In conclusion, a D2C strategy can significantly benefit the Indian hospitality industry by allowing hotels to build direct relationships with customers, offer personalized experiences, and have greater control over the customer journey. With the rise of online booking platforms and increasing competition, a D2C strategy is more critical than ever for hotels looking to stay competitive and meet customers’ changing needs. By embracing a D2C strategy, Indian hotels can stay ahead of the curve and provide an exceptional experience to their guests.

At Adaan Digital Solutions, we understand the importance of a D2C strategy for hospitality businesses, and we offer a range of services to help grow your business. Our services include mobile and app development, internet marketing, and social media management, which can help increase your online presence and drive more direct bookings. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help take your hospitality business to the next level.

FAQs

1. What is the future of the hospitality industry in India?

The future of the hospitality industry in India is bright. Factors such as rising disposable incomes, growing middle class, and increasing domestic and international tourism are driving the industry’s growth.

2. Why do hotels need digital marketing?

Hotels need to adapt to the D2C strategy to stay relevant in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. Digital marketing helps hotels reach a wider audience, increase brand awareness, and drive bookings through targeted advertising, social media, and search engine optimization.

3. What is the future of the hotel industry in 2023?

The hotel industry is expected to continue to grow in 2023, with a focus on sustainability, technology integration, and personalization. Customers will expect seamless experiences from booking to check-out, and hotels will need to adapt to stay competitive.

4. Why is digitalization important in the hospitality industry?

Digitalization is crucial in the hospitality industry as it allows hotels to improve customer experiences, streamline operations, and increase revenue. By implementing digital solutions such as online booking systems, mobile apps, and personalized marketing, hotels can offer guests a more convenient and personalized experience.

5. What is the scope of the hospitality industry in India?

The scope of the hospitality industry in India is vast, encompassing hotels, restaurants, cafes, bars, and other establishments. The industry is expected to continue to grow in the coming years, driven by increasing domestic and international tourism, rising incomes, and changing consumer preferences.

Elements Used In Marketing Mix For Services

pradeep on August 27, 2019

No matter what kind of business you have, you need a marketing plan to promote it. Organizations today are competing with each other and coming up with different strategies to distinguish themselves in the market.

One of the various strategies includes creating the right marketing mix for services. For those who don’t know, service marketing is different from product marketing. While the latter involves tangible goods that can be seen, smelt, or felt by the customers, service marketing relies heavily on the process and performance to deduce results.

To understand this aspect of marketing better, let’s first see what a service marketing mix is, and what are its elements?

What Is A Service Marketing Mix?

Also known as an extended marketing mix, this marketing mix is the foundation of a business’s blueprint design. It consists of 7 P’s – with more elements added to the traditional 4 P’s of the product marketing mix ( product, pricing, promotions, and placement). The 3 extra P’s are people, process and physical evidence. These are planned additions required for the optimum delivery of services.

With the combination of these different elements, companies communicate their organizational goals and branding messages to the customers. In this case, companies treat their services like products. The four main P’s help market the products as services, while the rest three P’s are used for effective service delivery and to enhance customer satisfaction.

The Main 4 P’s Of Marketing Mix

  1. Product
    The main element of any marketing mix is the product. Here, the product can be referred to as anything that the company is selling. This includes features and benefits that customers enjoy on buying goods or services. The services differ from products in terms that they are intangible and cannot be measured. However, they can be tailored to suit the users’ requirements and render services with a personal touch.
  2. Place
    The placing of your product can make or break your business. Ideally, your product should be available in a place where the target customers can easily access it. This can be a popular street, a mail order, or as the current market trends go – an e-commerce platform. It is your responsibility to understand your customers’ situation and ensure that your set up is visible to potential customers. For example, attracting more customers by redesigning your retail space.
  3. Price
    An excellent product or service is one that represents good value for money. However, this does not mean that it has to be the cheapest in the lot. Most marketing experts will agree that customers are usually willing to pay more for a product they really like. To decide on the right pricing, you will have to identify how much your customers are willing to pay, the mark-up you will need to handle the overheads, the profit margins, and the methods of payment. You can also gain a competitive advantage with discounts and seasonal pricing.
  4. Promotion
    There are various tools and techniques you can use to promote your product. This includes advertising, sales promotions, PR, social media, and personal selling. With the help of these tools, you can easily put your branding message across to the right audience, and in a way that they would like to hear (be it through delivering the information or appealing to their emotions).

The Extended P’s Of Marketing Mix

  1. People
    A successful business stands firm not only because of the vision and principles of the company but also due to its employees and their dedication. The staff working for you are the people responsible for creating happy and returning customers since they are the ones who ensure the quality of your services. Recruiting the right people and training them to develop their skills is a great way to deliver excellent customer service, which in turn creates a positive experience for your customers.
  2. Processes
    How efficiently you deliver a service can directly impact how much your customer is impressed by it. For ensuring the right process for your business, you need to ask a few questions – What kind of process do I want for my business? Should it be a technique that is reliable and easy to monitor? Or should I opt for a method that is sluggish but goes through several layers of hierarchy? By creating a process of marketing mixes, you can stay afloat in the race to deliver the highest quality services.
  3. Physical Evidence
    Most services include physical elements even if the bulk of what customers are buying is intangible. An example of this is a hair salon that offers a complete hairstyle service or an insurance company that provides printed assurances to customers. Here, the material (insurance) is not physically available but is still received as a physical product (papers of the insurance policy).

Whether you are looking for professional marketing services or require more information on marketing mix strategies, our experts at Adaan Digital Solutions will help you. We have years of experience under our belts and help many companies market their services efficiently. Call us today!

Social Media Marketing Strategy 2019

pradeep on August 8, 2019

In today’s digital era, a social media marketing strategy is one of the most important parts of any marketing campaign. Having a predetermined and well-researched social media marketing strategy helps you to achieve your marketing goals in a planned way. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have also rolled out business features, which helps digital marketers manage their brands effectively.

A good social media marketing strategy will help your brand achieve the set goals in the given time. This is why it is important to have a good strategy when you take your brand online.

Follow the key steps mentioned below for developing an optimized social media marketing strategy this year:

Set Actionable Social Marketing Goals

Aiming for a million new followers on Instagram in 2 months is unrealistic. On the other hand, retaining existing followers, increasing brand awareness, and achieving a higher quality of sales is gettable. It is better to set realistic goals as they are easier to achieve and it helps to scale the social efforts.

Research Your Audience

Marketers must never make assumptions about the audience for their brand. A marketer must have complete knowledge about the characteristics of his audience as it will help him decide how to attract targeted customers. With the help of social media analytics tools whatever you need to know about your audience is already available. After completing the research about your audience plan a strategy for the best outcomes.

Establish Your Most Important Metrics

A social media strategy must always be data-driven. That’s when metrics come into play. Likes and shares on your post are nice to have but they are not really used to measure the impact of a post as they are vanity metrics. On the other hand, engagement metrics are essential to building meaningful and lasting relationships with your followers. Reach, clicks, engagement, hashtag performance, and sentiments are engagement metrics that must be used to measure the impact of the post.

Analyze Your Competition

Know your competition before you start creating content. A clear picture of the strategy of the competition will help you create a better one. This involves a surface level analysis or if required dig deeper. The goal should not be to copy their strategy but to create a campaign with the right elements that will work in your favour. A simple google search can help you know a lot about your competitors.

Create And Curate Content

Every social media strategy is basically centred around content. Picking the right creative and caption to balance promotion and personality of a brand is a tough job. In general, marketers go with a combination of video content and user-generated content. The content developed should complement the ongoing trends and the best practices of the year. The content must deliver a single message for the complete campaign in order to maintain consistency.

viralmarketing

Make Timeliness A Top Priority

Customers expect quick replies and meaningful conversations on a regular basis with the brands. Great content won’t come to your rescue if you leave conversations or other engagement activities unattended. Just by being there for your audience you can gain a lot of respect as a brand. Also, make sure the right posts are being posted at the right time of the day. During the planning stage of the social media strategy, it is better to learn the best times to post on social media to reach your target audience.

Assess Your Result And Optimise

It is important to adapt your strategy after assessing the results of the small goals set by you. A stagnant strategy never works in a dynamic environment for social media. Monitoring the metrics allows you to make certain tweaks in accordance with the necessary changes required. Without continuously analyzing your effort you can never know how a campaign did as compared to others. A complete analysis is important for the best results.

How Will Marketers Deal With The Drowning of Third Party Tracking Cookie?

pradeep on August 2, 2019

For over 25 years, companies have used third-party tracking cookies as a way to track consumer behaviour online. These cookies offer a convenient option to target and retarget the market, and display advertisements to the users. However, with the rise of smart cookie-blocking technology – such as Apple’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention and Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) – third-party tracking cookies have started to crumble, being relegated to the internet dustbin.

With cookies being on the verge of death, marketers are now finding new ways to acquire customers without using third-party data. In this blog, we are going to discuss everything about the third-party tracking cookies, and how marketers will survive without them.

What Are Third-Party Tracking Cookies?
You might have heard about ‘browser cookies’ or ‘cookies’. In simple terms, cookies are data stored in the form of small text files in a user’s computer. They are designed in a way that makes them capable of holding a significant amount of data specific to a particular client or website. This data can be easily accessed by the web server, allowing it to deliver tailored pages to users.

Cookies are created when a customer accesses a website that uses cookies. Cookies deem the user’s IP address as a unique ID and collect information such as browsing history, session ID, and more. When the same customer returns to the website again, the browser sends the cookie file to the server, which results in a personalised browsing experience.

Why Are Third-Party Cookies Dying?

It all started when the tech giant Apple decided to take its first jab at cookies. The company introduced Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) to the digital landscape, a cookie-blocking technology that blocks third-party cookies by default. Firefox’s Enhanced Tracking Protection (ETP) has followed suit, making it hard for marketers to collect cookie data from users’ computers. It turned out that both the cookie blocking technologies had some loopholes that ad networks figured out pretty quickly and learned to work around with.

Now that Google has also started pushing back against ad tracking – with its opt-in version of ITP – and will soon let users block advanced cookies, Apple has taken a step further by introducing Intelligent Tracking Prevention 2.2. This software not only covers the digital loopholes, but also effectively cuts the first-party cookie lifespan from seven days to one day. All these blockers are by default activated in both Safari and Firefox.

How Will Marketers Work Without Cookies?

Contextual Advertising
With all the cookie-blocking happening in the digital space, keyword contextual targeting seems like the next best option to target users. In this kind of advertising, users see ads based on the content they browse instead of their behaviour profile. For example, if a user is interested in painting and is reading a painting blog, he will see ads related to painting materials. This technique helps marketers to produce and distribute relevant content.

People-Based Targeting
A great example of this is how Facebook targets its users. It relies heavily on unique identifiers related to the user, and not the device. The method proved to be very useful as the company did not need third-party cookies to track or gather user data. Instead, people-based targetting allows companies to engage with users at the times when they actually want to connect with them. With this method, brands can easily tap into the singular space of a customer, anchoring all the data to a single source.

How Can Marketers Collect And Use First-party Call Tracking Data?
Since there will be no third-party tracking cookies, it will become more important for marketers to get access to first-party data. Companies can utilise data from customers who have shown interest in their business. There is another untapped source of first-party customer data, and that is the call centre. One can gather first-party data source through phone conversations, especially those who work in industries that rely on phone calls for sales.

Through customer conversations, marketers can gather useful digital datasets by accurately deriving meaning from it. There are many AI-powered call tracking and analytics software in the market that let you predict things like what type of call it is (service or sale) and what else do you have to do to earn more conversions. By understanding the nature of a call, marketers can optimise their media for better ROI.

Benefits Of Using Call Tracking Platforms

  • They track calls and find their possible source, i.e., pre-call consumer touchpoints like paid search, social media, emails, or landing pages.
  • They help in accumulating data from multiple platforms, such as web and CRM, to create a better customer profile.
  • They analyse conversations to obtain useful insights about the callers.

It’s definitely high time that we say goodbye to 25-year-old technology and move on. In case, you need help to plan your keyword contextual targeting strategy, our experts at Adaan Digital Solutions will help you. Contact us at 011 4266 6666 to know more about our digital marketing services!

How To Use Facebook Lead Ads For More Conversion

pradeep on March 18, 2019

One of the top priorities for all marketers is to get substantial and continuous traffic to their sites. This is because they know that this traffic will further convert into leads and customers, contributing to the growth of their business. But what if the entire process of driving traffic to sites can be skipped without compromising on the generation of leads? That’s where Facebook lead generation ads help you!

Apart from being the most popular social media platform in the world, Facebook is an effective way to generate leads for a business. How? Facebook lead ads let you easily collect data from your target audience without moving them to a specific landing page.

In this blog, we are going to discuss everything you need to know about Facebook leads ads, including how to set them up, Facebook lead ads best practices, benefits of facebook lead ads, and more!

What Are Facebook Lead Ads

You must have seen ads appearing in between posts on your Facebook newsfeed. They are small, containing an advertisement for a product or a business along with a call to action button. These ads are what we call Facebook lead ads. When a user clicks on the CTA button, a form with the person’s pre-filled information (that the user has already provided to Facebook) pops up for review. On submission, Facebook passes it along to the company responsible for the ad.

The best thing about Facebook lead ads is that they let you target specific audiences and even personalise your message for them. Moreover, it only takes a user to sign up without going through the hassle of leaving the Facebook page. Now, the question is, how to set up a powerful Facebook lead ad?

benefits of facebook lead ads

How To Set Up A Facebook Lead Ad

Step 1: Go to Ads Manager on Facebook. In Ads Manager, click Create Campaign to start your campaign. Choose the Lead generation objective. If you want to do split testing, check the Create Split Test option.

Step 2: Now that you are done with choosing the objective, it is time to move to Ad Set. An ad set is a frame for your ads where you decide on the audience, placement, budget and bidding strategy for your ads. Adjust the ad set and agree to the Terms and Conditions.

Step 3: If you want, you can also layer in demographic and behavioural targeting for your custom audiences. You will also find a connection option where you can target your Facebook fans and get their email address details. However, make sure to keep your custom audience separate from other targets.

Step 4: Name your ad and then select your Facebook page and Instagram account if applicable. You can use creative assets in lead ads, such as static images, carousels, 360 photos, or videos. Also, choose an attractive CTA button like Sign Up, Subscribe, or Download.

Step 5: Save the draft and put a limit or activate budget optimisation to avoid exceeding your marketing budget. Once you are done with everything, click Ad Set on the right.

Step 6: The next step is creating the lead form. For this, go to the Lead Form section and click on the New Form button. If you have already created a form, you can re-select it by clicking on the Duplicate button.

Step 7: Click the pencil icon in the top left and add information to it. This includes giving your lead form a name, adding an intro, a headline, choosing images, and adding more information about your products. Write an attractive advertisement copy to attract users’ attention.

Step 8: Click Questions and customise the question you will ask your customers. After that, check the boxes for the information you want to gain from users. You can also add custom questions by clicking on the Custom Questions button.

Step 9: Finally, edit the Privacy Policy section by adding a link. Click Thank You screen and write a personalised message that you want users to see after filling the form. Click Finish to complete the process.

Step 10: Once done with everything, click Place Order. Your ad is good to go for the approval process!

facebook lead ads best practices

Tips To Generate Effective Facebook Lead Ads

It takes both knowledge and experience to create a lead ad that converts. From the headline to the follow-up, every aspect of your ad needs to be compelling enough to make your users fill the form.

1) Effective Incentive
The most important aspect of a Facebook lead ad is the incentive it offers to a user. When a user comes across a Facebook ad, he asks, ‘What’s in it for me?’. The marketer answers his question with an incentive or a value that users get in exchange for their email address or phone number. Some good incentive examples include discounts and promotions.

2) Creative And Compelling Copy
Create an attractive copy. Tell them why they must sign up for your product or service. You can also include an eye-catching image or video to draw attention to your ad. Make sure that your ad provides great value to the user which they can avail by confirming their email address in two simple clicks. Use a persuasive, to-the-point CTA button for the copy.

3) The Right Audience
Targeting the right audience is crucial to receive good results with Facebook lead ads. The best way to do this is by re-targeting the users who have already shown interest in your site. You can create a lookalike audience for your ads as well, based on their demographics and preferences.

If you want to know more about Facebook lead ads and other marketing tools, feel free to get in touch with our experts at Adaan Digital Solutions. We offer professional marketing services to clients across the world.

8 Latest Web Designing Tools To Create Responsive Websites

pradeep on March 14, 2019

Every now and again, the tech industry brings out innovative devices that unfold new capabilities and make our pursuits ever so easy. Unfortunately, the same is not true for our website designers! With varying screen sizes, features, input mechanisms and individual limitations of every device, learning new tools and techniques is a staple role of being a designer.

Website designs that offer a harmonious mix of great user experience and multi-device functionality are one of the hottest trends today! Simply put, a website with a responsive design will be able to adjust automatically across various displays to facilitate optimal readability and seamless navigation.

To counter the challenges associated with designing responsive websites and to help designers maintain a competitive position in the market, many commendable designing tools have been introduced in the market to make your job simple and easy!

Here are the best design tools that can help you become the master of your profession!

gridset

Gridset

By using Gridset as your designing tool, you can design, prototype and build responsive custom layouts based on grids. This allows you to curate any type of grid you want in your project, even those regular columnar grids found in many CSS frameworks.

Gridset can be integrated with diverse content management systems such as Joomla, WordPress and Drupal, as well as with popularly-used graphics applications including Photoshop and Fireworks.

Wirefy

Wirefy is lauded for its ability to give out responsive websites. It only requires a fundamental knowledge of CSS and HTML to start generating unique wireframes.

The fact of the matter is that Wirefy consists of responsive HTML snippets and templates. They mechanically adjust as the browser is resized while functioning across different devices. If you are working for a client who values website content over everything else, Wirefy may afford you the liberty to create responsive designs.

Adobe edge instect

Adobe Edge Inspect

Wondering how a web page will appear across different devices and varied screen sizes? Adobe Edge Inspect is the designing tool that can help you find this out!

Adobe Edge Inspect gives you the opportunity to preview the performance of your website. This mobile device allows you to inspect the website’s adaptability across devices like the iPad, iPhone, Galaxy Nexus, and more. This saves you from the stress of dealing with different devices to inspect the various aspects of the site.

Gumby2

Easily downloaded and customisable, Gumby2 has been developed with efficient CSS pre-processor SASS and offers a smart framework for responsive web designs.

From quickly-loading images to strongly embedded videos of difficult ratios, Gumby2 offers wide features. These include grids, buttons, toggles and switches, forms, tabs, dropdowns, drawers, as well as templates.

Adobe Edge Reflow

Edge Reflow is another smart creation of Adobe that allows for visually designing of responsive websites. Adobe Edge Reflow can easily convert the content in Photoshop documents (PSD) into HTML and CSS. It then visually adjusts the structure through breakpoints.

As a powerful visual design tool, it can also accommodate drag-and-drop content files and allows to make formatting edits through panels. However, it is important to have basic knowledge of HTML and CSS to work with Adobe Edge Reflow efficiently.

Invision

Invision is a strong platform where team members can share the design transitions of a website across various screens among themselves. This designing tool facilitates uploading functional designs and creating communication between the other team members.

One amazing feature of Invision is that you can share clickable designs through SMS. In this way, a designer can test the design easily and quickly. Of late, the company has also introduced its adaptability for Android phones.

responsive website

Export Kit

Export Kit has surfaced in the market as a useful designing tool. It allows you to convert a Photoshop document (PSD) into HTML5 in just a matter of few clicks and provides advanced HTML and CSS features. Having a clean and valid PDD to HTML5 transformation is now possible in just a few minutes with Export Kit!

This smart tool can simplify your coding by quickly and easily converting your PSD into HTML, CSS, WordPress, JS, Android, and more! Designers can impress their clients by efficiently creating all the assets they will need with Export Kit. These assets will empower your clients to use or modify your output files promptly.

UxPin

A collaborative design tool accessible online, UxPin allows designers to generate interactive wireframes and prototypes. This immensely powerful designing tool gives out highly polished wireframes. This gives the users a comprehensive tool kit consisting of essential design elements. It also provides an extensive collection of custom UI elements.

UxPin is particularly useful for advanced designers whose creative instincts rejoice in producing aesthetic, colourful wireframes.

web designing

Conclusion

Responsive websites appeal to both the human brains and the search engines as they deliver a consistent and seamless experience to the users across different devices. In our mobile life, we constantly switch between devices to get things done. Accordingly, we expect our applications to be flexible and adaptive in all environments. Surely having functional and usable websites that are independent of screen widths is crucial for the growth of every business. Nothing but the best web page design tools are the need of today’s designers!

Tips On How To Write Attractive Content For Website

pradeep on March 8, 2019

It takes a lot more than putting pen to paper – or making powerful keystrokes – and creative instincts to churn out engaging web content!

When you are one amongst the 1.7 billion websites competing for more traffic and Google rankings, the content has to hit all the right chords in your visitors’ mind and heart. Your website will have nearly 15-30 seconds (that is said to be the limited attention span of a visitor) to make an impact.

Most content writing service providers in India emphasise the need for high-quality content for strong brand perception as well as improved web traffic and conversion rates. And these goals can be achieved at once by producing persuasive web content copy that gets the point across clearer and faster. After all, the most your visitor is willing to spare is one cursory glance to make the decision whether to stay or leave!

Want to create a long-performing web content copy that connects with the audience and delivers flourishing ROI? Here is an actionable checklist composed of handy writing tips that will help you!

Know your audience and write for them
How do you measure engagement capability of a website’s content? Engagement is about how well you manage to connect and communicate with your audience. And if you don’t know your target audience, your efforts at communicating and establishing a connection may fall flat. Hence before you begin drafting, do your research.

  • Who is your primary audience?
  • Who could be the secondary audience that can influence and inform this primary audience?
  • How are these audiences going to find your website?
  • What kind of experience is your website supposed to create for your audience?

Identifying and understanding your audience
The primary audience will be the direct recipients of your products or services. But the secondary audience may consist of all the individuals, professionals, and institutions that have a vested interest in the sector you are operational in. Now the goal is to make your content accessible and impressive for both audiences. Focus on what questions each group will ask about the topics you are writing? Where are they most likely to look for the products and services you offer? Can this be search engine results, social media platforms, backlinks from other websites, or email communications? And what kind of information and takeaways will satisfy them?

content writing for websites

Content also influences user experience
Treat your content as an integrated part of the user experience or UX (the art of knowing what your users want). Good user experience is, in fact, an equation of both design and content. So when we concern ourselves with the UX of content, our goal is to meet the following criteria:

Useful: The content must offer great value and information to the audience.
Findable: The content on each page should have important SEO keywords in moderation.
Usable: The content should be able to communicate with your audience and guide them towards their answers.
Credible: The content must not withhold or camouflage crucial information on the website as the visitor may feel tricked upon finding them out later.

Never put your visitor’s intelligence to the test
Do a quick scan of your website. Do you notice run-on or complicated sentences, long walls of text, the reiteration of same keywords or concepts, and exaggerated promotion of products? If any of them ring true for your website, you are setting yourself up for a letdown. Most visitors are likely to skim or scan the web pages and may not appreciate the language prowess displayed on your website. Here is what you can do instead:

  • Write short and snappy sentences that delight both readers and search engines.
  • Use transitional phrases to offer a smooth reading experience and keep your audience scrolling.
  • If you have more information, try presenting it in small chunks of paragraphs or bullet points that are easily read.
  • Keep your writing style simple and stick to active voice.
  • Follow the ‘inverted pyramid’ approach and offer them important information first.
  • Make your headings simple, obvious, and convincing.
  • Avoid making your writing repetitive and see to it that you offer them something new to learn in every section of the page.
  • Make sure to be clear with the ideation of every webpage. Work out the key goal of each page so that you don’t go awry in your writing!
  • Create a proportionate mix of promotional and non-promotional information in your writing. Let them have valuable information first before you ask them to sign-up or become your customer.

website content writing services

Wrapping Up

Writing, in general, is a lot of brainstorming and elbow greasing. But creating action-oriented content for a website that directs your marketing efforts to the right audience in a captivating way is even more challenging! However, a good rule of thumb to make your writing more engaging is to infuse a unique personality into your content.

Although you may be frantically googling for inspiration and information, resist the temptation of plagiarising. Make efforts at concocting your own unique story or ideas and build that up from there. Maintain a conversational tone throughout and proofread for unnatural and stilted sentences. You can even add some humour that you are sure your audience can easily understand and relate to. The bottom line is to keep your website goals in mind and pursue them with your words!

Technical SEO – The Best of all SEO Tactics!

pradeep on August 20, 2018

The moment you read the word “technical,” you tend to go squeamish. Most people do.

But when it comes to Technical SEO, you have nothing to worry about. It is only about changing certain aspects of your website to make your content rank high for the relevant keywords and phrases. Here are a few such aspects that you should consider working on if you want to optimize your site for the search engines:

Loading Time

The first aspect of Technical SEO is to make sure you have a fast site. Nearly 40% of visitors end up abandoning websites if they take longer than three seconds to load. In fact, 47% would expect websites to load within a span of two seconds. Even a high rank on the SERPs may not do well to your website if it doesn’t load within these two seconds. With every second of delay in loading time, you end up losing conversions by about 7%. As per digital market research agency, Zoompf, the most common problems that affect the speed of a site are:

  • Images that are not optimized
  • Uncompressed content
  • Excessive CSS image requests
  • Lack of caching information

If you are using WordPress you may also want to work on limiting your plugin use, using CDN for static files and shifting to a faster web host.

Mobile Friendliness

You cannot ignore the significance of mobile-friendliness when it comes to technical SEO. Google has made it very clear that you may miss out on mobile traffic from Google Search if the pages of your site are not mobile-friendly. You are not exactly alone if you have not thought about making your site mobile-friendly. Nearly, 44% of the Fortune 500 companies are still to make their websites mobile-friendly. Nevertheless, this is no reason not to fix your issue at the earliest. It is not too tough to make your site mobile-friendly. Yet you may want to watch out for a few things that include:

  • Blocked JavaScript, image files, and CSS
  • Unplayable content (in case you are using flash videos)
  • Faulty redirects
  • The Mobile-only 404s
  • Pop-ups and interstitials
  • Irrelevant cross-links
  • Slow pages

Site architecture

Google is always sending its search spiders to discover new or updated web pages. If you don’t make it easy for Google’s spiders to find your pages, you may not get indexed or ranked. What you need to do is have in place, a simple yet strong site architecture. At this stage, you may want to focus on the following things:

  • Creating HTML and XML sitemaps
  • Submitting your sitemap on Google Search Console as well as Bing Webmaster tools
  • Adding sitemap locations to your robots.txt file
  • Categorizing your content
  • Using internal links to make your pages more relevant
  • Eliminating crawl errors if any
  • Doing away with unnecessary redirects and wrong codes
  • Finding and removing broken links
  • Getting rid of duplicate or thin content
  • Structuring your data using schemas and rich snippets

It might take quite some time for you to familiarize yourself with the various aspects of Technical SEO and figure out the best way to make your site rank higher on the SERPs. The lack of experience might even lead to mistakes that can prove to be quite costly in the long run. We, at Adaan, can help you avoid such headaches for good.

Our SEO experts are well-versed in each and every element of technical SEO and keep themselves updated with the latest changes in Google’s algorithms. All that you need to do is get in touch with us and wait for the system to work – to your advantage!

Best Facebook Ad Strategies for Ecommerce Marketing

pradeep on July 16, 2018

When it comes to ecommerce marketing, there are three things that you would need more of, and  constantly: more conversions to increase your sales, relevant traffic to your website, and sales from your existing customers.

Facebook Advertising can help you get all these and more.

Never used Facebook for Ecommerce Marketing? Here is why you should:

  • Facebook has more than 20 billion users who remain active month after month.
  • Facebook delivers the largest number of online shopping orders
  • 152% is the typical ROI you can expect from your Facebook Ads.

Are you willing to forego this wonderful ecommerce marketing opportunity by not advertising on Facebook?

If yes, you can stop reading this post right away.

If your answer is ‘No,’ you are about to uncover a few wonderful Facebook Advertising strategies that you can use for driving more traffic, improving conversions and getting your customers to purchase more from you.

Making Use of Dynamic and Multi-Product Ads

You must have come across customers who browse through your ecommerce site but hesitate to make those purchases. There may be even those who abandon their shopping carts midway. So, how do you bring back these customers once they are gone? You can do so by putting up Dynamic Product Ads on Facebook. These would be tailored to your customers based on their activities on your site. All that you may need to do to monitor their activities is to install a conversion tracking pixel on your checkout page. You could use Multi-product ads to include more products in a single ad. This way, every time they logon to Facebook, which they will do at least once a day, they will see all those products that they missed buying from your website. You can also use this highest ROI ecommerce marketing strategy to remarket your products to existing customers.

Running General Retargeting Campaigns

On an average about 72% of online shoppers abandon their shopping carts before completing their purchases. If you don’t retarget these customers, not more than 8% of them would come back to finish what they started. On the other hand, if you retarget through Facebook Advertising, you can bring back at least 26% of these abandoners. Retargeting campaigns are said to be much more powerful when compared to the standard advertising campaigns.

Using Lookalike audience to find new customers

Our past experiences teach us a lot. In the same way, the past customers of your business let you know a lot about the characteristics of your new customers. You can create Look-alike audience using the data from your conversion-tracking pixel. Once you do this you will be able to tailor your ads based on their interests and attract new customers with similar interests. Facebook algorithms make it possible for you to find new customers who may have similar interests and demographic characteristics, as your existing customers.

Using Facebook for ecommerce marketing can help promote your products in a cost-effective way. That’s not all – you can also use Facebook ads to communicate your brand story. In fact you could create a series of such ads or upload a video for better results. This will not only establish you as a genuine brand, it will also help you strengthen your relationships with your target audience.

A professional service like Adaan can help you maximize your ecommerce marketing returns through Facebook Advertising. Our social media marketing experts can make it work for you in a hassle-free and cost-effective way. Why not give it a try?

 

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