By
Brian Smith
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Date Published: January 29, 2014 - Last Updated August 22, 2018
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Comments
It’s clear that the Internet has dramatically changed the way online businesses reach to out and sell to their customers. From contacting a customer, to marketing a brand or selling a product, things are vastly different than they were even a decade ago.
There are a number of factors behind these changing business trends, including ongoing technological developments and increasing customer demands. Thus, keeping the key driving factors in view, every online business is adapting to the latest way of marketing and selling its products and/or services. If you look at these changes year by year, you will find a considerable change in the overall sales and marketing strategies of online businesses.
By looking at the overall position of the online market in 2013, we can draw predictions about some online trends to watch for in 2014.
Online Companies Will Increase their Web Presence
Web presence has always been important for online businesses because this does not just serve as a contact point for online customers, but also serves as the face of a particular business. Since the ‘web-presence’ has become a ‘must-have’ part of online businesses, the vendors are planning to focus on this aspect in the year 2014. For this, they may pay more attention to enhanced web designs and attractive graphics but the biggest focus will be on easing the web browsing on smart phones and tablets so that a potential client can land on an e-store anytime, from anywhere.
Content Marketing Will Reign Supreme
Content has always been a king for websites, especially in the e-business sector. With the passage of time, its importance has been increased. Why? The purpose of web-content is not just to provide a piece of information to a certain visitor. Real-time and informative content builds authority and credibility, which in-turn increases customer trust. Moreover, the content containing relevant and accurate information regarding a company and its products, also serves as a marketing tool and/or a self-service tool for customers. This is the reason that online businesses are less likely to advertise through traditional means like radio, TV, News Paper and magazines in the year 2014; instead, the focus will be on inbound marketing that requires businesses to build a strong, valuable and informative web-content.
Social Media Will Be Used as Multi-Purpose Business tool
With aim of reaching out to more customers, e-businesses have been more reliant on social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others for a long time. However, with its ever-increasing popularity, social media channels will be used as multi-purpose online business tools in the year 2014. Online businesses will not only increase their presence on social networking websites, but they will also use social as a support channel to provide support for their online clients.
Live Chat is Likely to Become a Primary Support Tool
For its invaluable sales and customer service benefits, online chat is likely to surpass all other support channels in the year 2014. Live chat support makes online customer service much more effective and easier than before. Using this support channel, retailers can approach their customers in a matter of seconds. Online vendors can build strong rapport by providing on-the-spot, real time and seamless support to distant online clients. They can even keep-an-eye on the customers who navigate through their websites. This real-time monitoring feature of live chat enables retailers to provide the right assistance at the right time, minimizing shopping cart-abandonment rates. Thus, looking at its remarkable business benefits, online chat support is likely to become a primary mode of providing customer support in the year 2014.
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