by : Priscilla Ng Ecommerce Tips, Software, Website Design

Why is CRM Important for a B2B Business?

The most important and perhaps the most challenging part of running any business is to get clients. And clients are captured with the help of data, knowing who wants what helps businesses hit the right spot of their potential customers.

A B2B CRM solution can help businesses do just that. It can help you make more data-driven decisions, improve your marketing and sales campaigns, and help you optimize your funnels better.

However, the B2B CRM solutions should be programmed by a software development firm to fit your particular needs instead of using a clone system that many businesses are already using.

So What’s B2B CRM Anyway?

Short for Customer Relationship Management, CRM is all about the ‘customers come first’ approach. It is a management strategy where data is collected in order to better understand customers’ needs and provide them with maximum value. Furthermore, it allows businesses to know exactly what their customers want, which means they can upsell their products and ultimately increase their revenue.

There are many B2B CRM software solutions that can help the sales team collect heaps of data from different communication channels where they interact with their clients and then analyze it. All of this data is stored in the company’s database and can be accessed by the sales and marketing teams for their existing and upcoming campaigns.

Furthermore, B2B CRM is also about nurturing your relationship with your clients. You can stay in touch with them from time to time, help them out whenever you can, offer discounts or freebies, and earn their loyalty.

Why Your Business Needs CRM?

The basic idea behind any sales cycle/funnel is to take the customer through the journey of several steps, starting from increasing brand awareness and then ultimately making the sale. Do you know that for every dollar spend on CRM, $8.71 is earned back? (Source)

Although it can be a very challenging process, with the help of CRM software solutions, you can find out what a particular set of customers need at a specific stage. This makes things easier. Here are a few core advantages of using B2B CRM:

Highly Targeted Campaigns:

The launching of any marketing campaign is already pretty tough, but what if you need to run more than one of them? What if you sell three types of soaps; Beauty Soap, Antibacterial Soap, and Acne Soap, and you need to promote them at once? The target market for all three of them will be different, right?

So how will you keep track of potential client data, and who needs which soap? This is where B2B CRM software will help you. By collecting, analyzing, and organizing data of different types of customers via your multiple communication channels, it will help your sales team keep track of who is who and what is what.

 Detailed Analytics:

Once you have concluded a marketing campaign, how will you find out if it was a success? Well, that is where CRM will help you out as well. It will analyze the data of all your sales campaigns and will provide you with detailed reports and insights on things like:

  • Which campaign yielded the highest ROI?
  • Anticipation of sales for next quarter
  • What are the best and most qualitative leads?
  • Which of your actions impacted the sales decision of lead?

And so on. Well-developed CRM software usually has a dashboard where all of this information can be accessed with just a few clicks.

You Can Make More Data-Driving Decisions:

As discussed above, you will be provided with tons of insights regarding how your campaigns when and also which leads are the best. It can even rank leads and give them scores based on how they performed.

So the next time, when you are creating another campaign, you can use this data to better prepare yourself, and instead of wasting time on unimportant leads, you can follow quality ones. This can help you turn your sales funnel into a money-making machine.

Makes Marketing and Sales Departments Collaborate:

The two hands of any business that help it collect the profits are the sales and marketing departments. However, in many business environments, they are not directly working together, which can compromise the company’s potential to reach more potential clients and nurture the relationship with the existing ones.

With the help of the CRM system, you can align both of these departments as all the data from both sides will be fed inside the CRM software. So whenever any department needs to know something about a campaign or a lead, they can just access the data from a dashboard.

Over to You:

Make sure to hire a professional software development firm to make you a customized system of B2B CRM based on your needs and the marketing channels you use to interact with your customers.

It will not only make it a piece of cake for clients to reach you whenever they want, but your sales and marketing teams will be able to make better data-driven decisions.

by : Priscilla Ng Ecommerce Tips, Software Customization, Website Design

Why Should You Sell on Ecommerce Marketplaces Besides Your Own Store?

Wondering if you should have your ecommerce store developed? Maybe you want to replicate the look of online marketplaces like Shopee using the clone system website and sell from there? Well, you can do these things, but you still need to sell on these marketplaces as well.

This is because the annual sales of Malasia’s ecommerce market jumped by 47% from 2014 to 2017 and expected to further grow at a rate of 24% per year by 2021 (Source).

So this means if you can not only sell from your brand website but also from ecommerce marketplaces and grow your business in the next few years.

5 Reasons You Need Ecommerce Marketplace Besides Your Own Website:

Access to Their Customer Base:

Do you know that in just Q4 of 2018, Lazada received 183 million visits, and Shopee received 147.6 million visits? (Source). This is huge for businesses looking to get more customers and ultimately increase their sales. By creating on your store on platforms like Lazada and Shopee, you will be able to access an untapped market of customers who are purchasing online. Even if you have your own separate website where you sell online, by not working on these marketplaces, you are leaving some serious money on the table.

Plus, as mentioned at the start of this article, the ecommerce market of Malaysia is on track to grow further, and this growth is not going to stop in the coming years. This means if you make a store now, it will grow with time, and you will receive even more sales and customers in the future.

Fulfillment Benefits:

Ecommerce marketplaces like Lazada have their own fulfillment programs as well. This means the hassle of packing, shipping, and dealing with product returns will not be your problem. You just need to send your product inventory to their fulfillment centers, and that’s all, they will pick, pack, and ship it whenever someone orders.

This type of freedom allows you to put your store on autopilot and make money even while you sleep. Although they charge some fee for doing this, the peace of mind and freedom is still worth it.

Marketing Opportunities:

One of the benefits of selling on online marketplaces is the marketing tools they offer that you can leverage to get ahead of your competition. You can use PPC advertising to put your product right in front of the competitor. When people search for a product that you sell, your product will be on top, which means more chances of getting the sale.

Furthermore, there are make campaigns like Black Friday deals, daily flash sales, and many more that you can enroll in and further grow your sales.

Enhance Brand Visibility:

If you are just starting out on your journey to becoming an online brand, you high brand visibility. And places like Lazada and Shopee offer this kind of opportunity. By using their platform and their credibility, you can entice and attract more potential customers.

This basically means you don’t have to spend thousands on marketing to position your brand in people’s minds. You can just start a store on the ecommerce marketplace and get benefit from their credibility and trustworthiness.

Access to Other Countries:

You are not just limited to selling in your own country when you sell on ecommerce marketplaces. If you want, you can make a store in other countries as well where the marketplace exists, send your inventory to their warehouse in that country, and immediately start selling.

For instance, Lazada allows for selling in 6 southeastern countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore. You can sell in all 6 of these countries if you want.

Why Do I Need My Own Website When I Can Sell on Ecommerce Marketplace?

Now that you realize the benefits of selling on the ecommerce marketplace, you might wonder, why do I need to have my own website? Well, that is because you can channel the customers from those marketplaces to your own brand website.

The benefit for this will be that when people start buying directly from your website, you won’t have to pay fees that you do when selling on ecommerce marketplaces. So you will have more profit per sale. Plus, you can build your own customer base using social media and get more sales on new products.

Over to You:

You can have your own customized system of ecommerce website developed and also an ecommerce app from a software development company. But if you go just one step further and also start to sell on ecommerce marketplaces, you can have access to a bigger customer base.

Plus, you can eventually get the people buying from you on the ecommerce marketplace to visit your website and grow your personal customer base. 

by : Priscilla Ng Ecommerce Tips, Software, Software Customization

Tips for successful Mobile Application Testing

Are you getting software development but don’t know if it will work perfectly for all of your users? Maybe you are thinking that the software maintenance team will fix issues as they are reported by users? Well, why let things reach your customers when you can discover and fix them during the development process? We will provide you with top 5 tips to test your application and ensure it goes into your customer’s mobiles fully fixed and functional so they can have an excellent user experience:

Real Environment Testing is Crucial:

The use of emulators to test your app is just for the early stages, and they are important too, but testing just on emulators is not really a success for all kinds of apps. All of the tests should not run on emulators only. Real-life tests will be way more reliable than emulator tests, and you will be more confident sending your app out into the real-world scenarios. Testing your app on real devices will be more accurate as you can know its functionality with the integral parts of different devices like GPS, camera, audio recorder, Bluetooth and internet, etc.

Now the problem is that you might find it challenging to get a massive quantity of mobile devices having combinations of different operating systems to test your app on. This can be taken care of through the use of a cloud-based platform containing a hub of real mobile devices. You can get the most precise results this way, and getting your hands on so many devices will be a breeze. There are tons of platforms that offer this kind of service; you just need to search on Google to find one.

Automation of Testing:

Automated testing is the most important thing to do when it comes to your mobile apps. It can help you ease the test execution on multiple devices simultaneously. This will free up a lot of your time that would’ve used on manually testing the app on each device.

In cases where you need to set up a lot of things before the tests, you might want to use manual testing, but other than that, you should leverage automated testing platforms that support both the Android and iOS.

Testing of App Functionality:

No matter which kind of app you have, which kind of feedback it gets from the users, and how many people start or stop using; it depends on its functionality. People want to use apps that perform specific functions that they want. Having an app with incomplete or insufficient functionality will only result in your users abandoning it.

So you have to ensure that the main functions of your app are fully integrated into it and are working as they should. For this, you need to perform a functionality test. It will help you find out flaws in functionality, and you can then correct them before the app hits the mobile phones of your users.

Testing of Load and Performance:

Some tests will be performed at the early stages of your app to identify the bugs before the development of a full app. However, to assess the performance and loading of the app, you need to use tools like Android Monkey and JMeter in the SDLC process later on. The performance check is also done on real devices to see if there are any issues with memory leaks or network interruptions.

The speed of the internet can also have an impact on the user experience of your app. If a user is connected to slow internet, the app may load media very a dead slow speed. So you need to ensure that you test the app’s performance and loading on slow internet connections as well.

Choosing the Right Tools:

It is crucial that you select the right tools to test your apps on. There are many tools, but not all of them will conduct deep testing and analysis, which might reflect later on in the form of poor user experience. So, go with the cream of the crop even if you have to pay a little bit more.

One of the best open-source tools in the market is Appium; make sure to check it out. Other mentions would be Espresso and Robotium, specifically for the Android apps allowing the testers to write their UI tests. You can also check out the EarlGrey by Google, which performs similar functions like Robotium for the iOS framework.

Over to You:

Whatever your approach is, just make sure to have a solid software development from the start so that your testing phase goes smoothly. Be sure to discuss this with the software programmers that no matter how many flaws come up during the testing phase, they will have to solve them.

by : Priscilla Ng Digital Marketing, Ecommerce Tips, Software Customization, Website Design

Benefits of Having Own eCommerce Website Instead of selling on Lazada and Shopee

Thousands of businesses are still selling on their own eCommerce websites instead of online marketplaces like Lazada and Shopee, ever wondered why? This is because there are plenty of benefits of having your own store instead of depending on eCommerce platforms. So before you get a development company’s eCommerce website package in Malaysia, you should know why you even need to have one in the first place. That being said, let’s start:

5 Benefits of Your Own eCommerce Store Instead of Selling on Marketplaces:

Build Your Brand

If you abandon online marketplaces and have your own eCommerce store designed with the help of a company offering eCommerce website package in Malaysia, you will have freedom of branding yourself. Your brand will no longer be overshadowed by the stamp of the marketplaces like Shopee or Lazada.

Your customers will know that they are directly buying from you which gives you opportunities to increase brand loyalty and own the customer. You can do many things to position your brand in your customers’ minds without any restrictions.

Such as adding your social media handles at the store’s pages, branding the boxes your products arrive in, and even asking for customer’s personal emails to create an email marketing system. These things will help you solidify your brand’s name, increase customer loyalty, and establish personal contact with them.

No Risks

One of the most painful and discouraging parts of selling on platforms like Shopee, Lazada, or Amazon is that you are totally reliant on them to keep your store running. They can shut it down whenever they want, and that will result in you losing your bread and butter. These platforms don’t allow sellers to have customers’ personal data, so you won’t have any customer-base to market your new store to.

On the contrary, if you get some professional web design services in Malaysia and have your own store built, you will be the boss! You won’t have to worry about getting banned, plus, you can divert your customers to your social media and have a separate fan base in case anything happens to your eCommerce store.

Increased Opportunities for Marketing

One of the best parts of having your own eCommerce website is that you can cross-promote. If your store is getting traffic, you can contact brands selling products related to your niche and ask them to promote your store, and you will give their customers a % discount on every purchase.

For instance, if there is a brand selling coffee machines and you sell coffee filters, you can ask them to send their customers your way, and you will give everyone a 20% discount. This is an awesome marketing strategy that boosts both revenue and customer loyalty.

However, you cannot engage in cross-promotions on online marketplaces like Lazada or Shopee because they have their own set of terms and regulations you need to follow to avoid getting banned.

No More Heavy Commissions No More Heavy Commissions:

Selling on marketplaces like Lazada or Shopee means you will not just have to abide by their rules, but you will have to pay a fixed commission on every sale. Plus, there’s also a fee for keeping your stock in their warehouses. These expenses can eat up a big chunk of your profits. However, this is not going to be a problem with your own store.

You won’t have to pay any commissions, which will leave a good amount of money for you or for your marketing/expansion purposes.

Control of Traffic

When you are selling on a platform like Lazada or Shopee, you cannot really rank your listing in Google. This means you will have to create a landing page that redirects people to your listing and then rank that page on Google. But if you are doing that amount of work and spending heavily on ranking a landing page, then why not rank your own separate store?

You will have extra profits from the money you don’t pay in marketplace commission to support the SEO of your store and get massive amounts of traffic to your store. Since 93% of the web traffic is originated from search engines (SearchEnginePeople), you can expect a good amount of people coming in organically.

Parting Words:

There’s no doubt about the benefits of using big marketplaces like Lazada and Shopee, but the advantages of having your own eCommerce store outweigh them. Simple things like having your own email or WhatsApp marketing system based on your customers are not permitted by these platforms, which leaves you with nothing in case they ban your store.

So it is better to get a professional development company’s eCommerce website package in Malaysia and have your own store up and running in days. You will have more profit and scaling opportunities this way.