CRM is your gateway to streamline marketing processes

Marketing is one of most erraticdivisions at any organization and requires a lot of coordination, follow up and escalation of status updates. This results in chaos and confusionsvery often. These hiccups can be eliminated by getting a robust Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application installed at your organization.

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application enables companies to streamline their marketing processes by providing systematic storage and updations of information. With a CRM you can manage your business relationships with existing customers or new clients more effectively. 

It also acts as an information platform for the management to look into and be informed about the cold and hot leads and potential business in the coming time. The application also enables the users to extract useful data related to sales, customers, sales team performance etc. It is therefore a cost effective way to manage sales and monitor the marketing team efforts while it also keeps a strong record of customers. 

CRM can be built on custom requirements as per your business profile and proves to be an essential ingredient in today’s competitive business world. It is a useful custom web application that helps you simplify the marketing process and et important information instantly. It makes decision making easier and contributes to your business growth immensely.

Some of the advantages of a CRM are:

·         Helps you manage client contacts

·         Helps you keep track of prospects and sales leads systematically

·         Helps in preparing insightful reports for analysis

·         Helps in allocation of leads

·         Helps in giving better customer support

CRM gets you a systematic marketing structure with one-time cost. It allows unlimited users to access and update data. In case of a CRM, IT solutions providers offer unlimited data storage as well. CRM makes it easy for you manage your work from anywhere in the world.

Adaptive & Responsive Websites – An Overview

A major stir in the web design and development industry has occurred with the launch of multiple platforms where websites can be viewed. Apart from PC and Laptops, the users are now using iPads, Tablets, Mobile Phones and other devices to browse websites. This calls for the need to develop websites that are compatible on screens with varied resolutions and sizes.

There are two ways of achieving this. However, as far as Mobile Screens are concerned, though it is possible to develop a website in a way that it fits itself to suit the mobile screen,but it is not recommended. Mobile browsing demands minimalistic content and navigation as the users view it on a small screen, even if it is a large screen handset, it still does not accommodate as much content as a desktop which is the base of website design  Mobile website development is the ideal solution for reaching out to visitors coming to your website through their smart phones.

Coming back to the solution..

·         Responsive Website Development

When a website is developed as a responsive website, it re sizes itself dynamically to fit the screen size it is being viewed upon. The website elements rearrange themselves to suit the dimensions of the screen while no information is lost. Responsive websites are developed using flexible grids and flexible elements within them that re-size themselves based on the percentage of screen space they acquire in a given dimension of the screen.

·         Adaptive Website Development

An adaptive design makes the website suitable for viewing on multiple screen resolutions by defining placement and size of elements in some fixed sizes. This makes the website compatible for viewing on different devices as it captures the closest predefined assortment of website elements.

Both the methods are equally successful in making your website user friendly on different browsers/ devices however the difference, if any, lies only in the fluidity of the responsiveness of the website. Adaptive or responsive, web design companies are now focusing on offering the customers the best solution and it is definitely an advantage to have a flexible website.

Social Media for Educational Institutions

The role of an educational institution is not confined to imparting education and granting a degree, rather, it largely contributes to the overall growth of the students as individuals. Therefore, it leads to formation of an everlasting bond between the student and institution, mentors and fellow students. 

In this era, it is impossible for people to stay personally connected to each other and Social Media Optimization bridges the gaps irrespective of the physical distance between people. This medium is being extensively used by businesses, celebrities, NGOs and establishments from all walks of life to stay connected with the masses. Despite all the criticism and doubts surrounding this medium, it has been seen igniting several causes to high levels. 

When it comes to educational institutions, social media campaigns are not just a necessity but are also convenient. The major chunk of the social hub is occupied by the youth and every educational institution is associated with a huge number of youngsters which may be current, prospective or former students. Therefore, finding people to initiate conversations would not be a challenge which in other cases is a tough stage.

Moreover, Social Media is not merely a platform for fun, it is fast progressing towards becoming a parameter for judging brands and establishments. Be it selection of a mobile phone or recruitment in a new organization, people tend to visit the Facebook page to figure out the nature of the entity. Similarly, students have also started to explore the Facebook pages of Universities, Colleges before taking admissions and the nature of content on your page is bound to affect the decision. Social Media marketing is also gaming prominence across the globe.

Why your institution should be on Social Media?

·         Reputation – Even if you are not on social media, as a topic, you still are and it is better to be available for responding that to let conversations build on their own.

·         The Buzz – Your social presence will act as an active community for updates, discussions, queries etc.

·         Leverage Users - All the students at your institution are using Social Media and posts related to their University, College, and Institute will help in generating conversations about your institution.

·         Observing Trends –The response you get on an event, any sort of achievement or even on a guest lecture video will reveal to you what are the interest areas of students. This analysis can be used for framing activities, workshops etc.s

·         Word of Mouth – Any person belonging to the marketing realm would know the importance of word of mouth. Your active social presence will keep your institution’s name on top of minds which may result in recommendation and testimonials more often.

·         Information Broadcast – The medium can be used for making announcements without much effort.

·         Internal Boost –The institution can organize competitions between different departments as to who may get more social engagement ratio which will enhance performance and bring more enthusiasm.

·         Brand Building – The criteria for selection of an educational institution includes the quality of education, exposure provided, mentors and several mother factors. All these aspects can reflect through the institution’s social presence and it will be a more credible form of information in terms of transparency.

E.g. An album with pictures of Indian students abroad and foreign students in India which has several likes and comments from those students will leave a stronger impact that simply writing on your website that you offer “International Exchange Programs”.

This might bring you down to a question.. “Being present on Social Media is fine but who will manage it?

“. Well, to answer that, it is understandable that in case of a University or a College, the amount of information is going to be massive. The queries and responses would also be massive. The best way to deal with this is to hire a professional agency providing social media management services.

The Dawn of M-Commerce-4G Networks Make it happen

You will find a lot of people arguing about the logic and practical usage of Mobile Shopping. There was a time when similar arguments used to surround the concept of “eCommerce” until Amazon and eBay turned out to be the instant shopping destination across the globe.

E commerce gained its popularity owing to the immensely growing popularity of PC, Laptops and Internet. But technology does not remain stagnant at any point. In the world that we survive, time is money. The busy life in this age does not leave much spare time for people to go out and make purchases. Moreover, there is a rapid reduction in the amount of time people spend on their PC and Laptops as alternate devices such as Smartphones, Tablets, and iPads have made life easier while you are on the move. All people care about is connectivity irrespective of time or device that gets it to them. This is what fueled the need for mobile websites and mobile app development.

Now from the perspective of consumer oriented businesses, it is a need of the hour to reach the customers where they are browsing.

The major challenges that appear while going for M-commerce mobile web development are:

·         The internet speed, even 4G is lesser than Wi-Fi so the M-commerce website needs to be fully optimized.

·         The display screen is small and the challenge is to accommodate products in a comprehensive yet user friendly manner.

·         Mobile Screens are not user friendly when it comes to filling up forms which is a necessity for an M-commerce transaction.

Mobile Shopping is here to stay, but it might come to an end for your business if you give a poor mobile shopping experience to your customers. Worst of which would be to have the desktop version to be opening on mobile screen. The idea is to provide a convenient solution to visitors looking for a quick purchase online and there are several factors that help in achieving this.

·         The search tool must be very strong and provide suggestions.

·         Navigation must be minimum and search result/ product listing pages must carry single click checkout buttons with each product.

·         Though space is a constraint but recommendations must still be provided.

·         Buttons, Links, Forms that lead to conversions need to be presented prominently.

M commerce can be achieved with development of a mobile website  or through smartphone app development. However, your checkout experience, more than the quality of your product will determine if the user is going to make another purchase ever. It is important to integrate functionality that helps the user throughout the process.

Some examples of good checkout system elements are:

·         Quick Login options through other websites - Google, Facebook, Yahoo etc.

·         Data analysis while form is being filled (e.g. please check the number you entered, it is not valid)

·         Save address for later

·         Cash on delivery is always a customer’s delight

·         On form submission, if one field is incorrect or empty, the data filled in other fields must not be lost.

M-commerce is not a choice but a necessity and its time to explore this domain with your business, do it right and reap the fruits.

Custom Web Applications

Having problems keeping a track of customer records? Or-struggling with inventory and resource related data? Every business process can be simplified and streamlined with Custom Web Applications.

The most cost effective way to manage business is to convert time taking manual work into automated processes and this is possible through web application development. Custom web applications are used to manage painstaking processes such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Employee Communication and Data Sharing (Intranet), Inventory Management, Recruitment Management etc.

Using a custom web application for internal purposes will not only help you business in cost cutting and time saving aspects but will also enable you to analyze important data through reports that can be generated in a few clicks. You can easily study the pattern of saved information over the years. Moreover, since the application is designed as per your organization structure, it allows you to categorize and manage information under desired sections and sub sections.

An experienced and expert software development agency can assist you in building the web applications based on your requirement. You can also migrate or upgrade an existing application to new technology in order to enhance the functionality and compatibility of the application with other systems. You can also carry out porting of web applications to the modern technology platforms, server   database porting, migration of data or legacy applications migration from stand alone to web platforms.

The web application development process includes conceptualization and structure finalization, architecture designing, user interface designing, coding, testing & quality check, installation and maintenance. 

Source: http://www.stercodigitex.com/blog