Category: Business

Before the Internet, people had to interact with their customers face-to-face and on their own terrain. But not, your customers don’t even have to speak to anyone within your organization before they decide to do business with you. However, if you don’t have any type of contact before consumers are ready to make a purchasing decision, there’s a good chance that their business might go to someone else.

To help you increase the chances of them working with you, here are three tips for helping consumers on their digital journey. 

Create Helpful Content

The first step on a consumer’s journey is to gather information about what their problem is and what possible solutions are out there for them. Knowing this, you should try your best to create helpful content that gives them the information they’re searching for.

According to Dummies.com, it’s wise to both create content that will be helpful for your audience as well as placing that content in an area where they are likely to see it. But to do this, you have to already have a great understanding of your customers. If you don’t have this, you can’t expect to be able to create content that will be helpful for them in the first place. So before you start creating videos or writing blogs that you mean to be informational, make sure you know exactly what content should be included and what will resonate best with your target demographic. 

Be Active On Social Media

For many businesses, one of the best places to reach potential customers is through social media. Depending on what your product or service is and what type of people you’re trying to sell to, the actual social media platforms that you’ll want to use will vary. However, your strategy for using each social media platform will basically be the same.

Ideally, Patricia Maranga, a contributor to Social Media Examiner, shares that you as a business will want to be as active as you can be on each chosen social platform by using the platform the same way your target audience does. This will increase your chances of being seen and remembered.  

Make It Easy To Make Decisions

Once your audience is ready to make a purchasing decision to be the solution to their problem, you want your product or service to be the most obvious choice for them. But to get to this point, you’ll want to make this decision to be as easy as possible. 

To do this, Patrick Spenner and Karen Freeman, contributors to the Harvard Business Review, recommend that you make it easy for consumers to get to your product pages and then navigate through the purchasing process in as few clicks or pages as you can manage. The more streamlined the process is with limited distractions, the more likely you are to get a conversion. 

If you’re wanting your business to be more helpful to consumers on their digital purchase journey, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you do this.

L’Oréal is going green. The beauty products giant is making “Green Sciences” the center of its planning for research and development as it builds its brand as a safe, transparent, and eco-friendly business.

L’Oréal products currently use raw inputs that are 34% of natural origin, 59% renewable, and 80% biodegradable. In establishing its new Research & Innovation the company has announced that by 2030 95% of ingredients will be derived from renewable plant sources, abundant minerals, or renewable processes. All of L’Oreal’s products will be ocean-friendly, respectful of the marine environment, doing no harm to the diversity of deep ocean, coastal, or freshwater ecosystems.

Says L’Oréal Deputy Chief Executive Officer Nicolas Hieronimus, “With Green Sciences we are entering a new chapter for L’Oréal Research & Innovation, which has been a key driving force behind the company since its creation. Our ambition is that by 2030 we will be able to offer women and men around the world increasingly effective, safe cosmetics that respect the environment. The company has also renewed its commitment to reducing emissions, water, and use of water, and to become carbon-positive, sequestering more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it releases into the atmosphere.

L’Oréal said the rapid shift toward new renewable alternatives to ingredients based on petroleum-derived chemicals is unfolding at a time that preserving the planet is paramount and the COVID pandemic is pumping demand for products proven beneficial to maintaining health and unquestionably environmentally safe.

With this new commitment to Green Sciences, Calvert Research & Management now ranks beauty specialist L’Oréal seventh among the world’s 1000 most eco-friendly companies. This ranking puts L’Oréal on a list with the most environmentally sensitive companies in the world, a list including consumer goods behemoth Unilever, footwear manufacturer Puma, consumer brands like Vaseline and Hellman’s, and hotelier Accor. Deputy Chief Executive Officer Nicolas Hieronimus describes the Green Sciences initiative as a new chapter in the company’s long pursuit of technological innovations that improve life for ordinary people, begun 112 years ago.

Over the past few years, ecommerce has become an integral part of any sound business strategy. The trend continues to gain momentum with online sales expected to account for a huge 17.5 percent of all retail sales worldwide by the end of 2021.

Whether you’ve recently set up your online store or you’ve been a player in this new field for some time, you already know that there are a number of challenges to overcome. It can feel like, despite your best efforts, you just aren’t getting the sales and attention you deserve.

That’s why we’ve put together a diagnostic list of 4 reasons your online store may be failing and how to address them.

1) Your Digital Presence is Weak

A huge part of any successful online business is exposure and credibility. If you run your business through your website only, you’re missing out on thousands of potential leads.

Through social media bios like this one, you can market your product to the correct userbase. Start with all the usual suspects, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Along with generating leads, it will give you the opportunity to interact with buyers and solicit feedback.

2) You Don’t Have A Marketing Plan

With so many drag and drop features and easy to use websites like Shopify, it can be tempting to think of your online business as a ‘set-and-forget’ situation.

No matter how good the shopping interface is, you need a marketing plan. At the very least, you need to be able to monitor important trends, such as how long users spend on your site and which items end up stuck in the virtual cart. You can do this using analytics tools (many available for free), such as Google Analytics. 

3) Your Prices Are Too High

A common mistake is to mark product prices up too high. With fierce competition, your product needs to be unique and coveted to command an exorbitant price.

Monitor your competitors to determine a reasonable price point. If you got your item from Aliexpress, for example, do not mark it up by 500%. Prospective customers will know with a simple Google search and lose faith in your business.

Additionally, using analytics discussed above, you can identify which products users abandon in their shopping cart, as ill advised pricing (or high shipping costs) are likely stopping customers from completing the purchase.

4) No Unique Selling Point

In an oversaturated market, you need to set yourself apart. That means determining your unique selling point. Your product does not have to be unique, but your delivery does.

For example, if you’re re-selling jewellery from a wholesaler, set yourself apart from competitors by taking your own product photos to add legitimacy. Also consider adding a hand-written note to each order to endear customers and make your business more memorable.

Running an online business will always be challenging, but by observing the above, you will almost immediately see your sales start to raise.

In every construction site, safety is the number one priority. The law requires that you uphold safety measures to protect the workers and the public too. For these reasons, barriers have become a necessity.

There are many types of barriers, materials and designs. Some offer specific solutions, while others are for various purposes. Here are the uses and the importance of having safety barriers, not only in construction sites but also anywhere applicable.

Road construction

The making of roads is a labour-intensive process and involves heavy equipment. Digging and blasting earth and rocks pose a potential danger to the construction crew and the drivers using diversions. Concrete barriers come in handy to guide traffic away from the area under construction.

In particular, concrete jersey barriers meet the standards to provide safety in high-risk environments. They are used to create alternative routes and define where drivers and pedestrians can safely find their way. Concrete jersey barriers are strong enough not to allow any penetration even in the event of an accident.

Perimeter protection

For commercial spaces, it is necessary to divide the outdoor spaces strategically. Apart from improving functionality, barriers at www.jpconcrete.co.uk also help protect public space and utilities located around access roads. Barriers help to define parking spaces and limit uncontrolled access. Concrete barriers help create a strong perimeter wall capable of withstanding forceful access by heavy-duty vehicles.

Durable security solutions

Safety and security are expensive yet needed for every property. However, the materials you use can determine how much you will need to spend on maintenance. Materials such as wood and plastic are ideal for short-term use. However, they are affected by extreme weather conditions, forcing you to spend much time and money on maintenance.

Concrete barriers are resistant to weather, insects, and sudden impact. Even with the weight, they are easily portable, and installation is quick. Buying concrete jersey barriers is viable as they last for decades, and can be used in different areas.

Noise control

As part of safety, controlling noise that comes from big equipment in construction is necessary. You can place concrete barriers of greater height to surround the noise pollution areas. This strategy is to use them as sound absorbers, reducing the effect by a considerable measure, and alleviating ambient noise.

Reducing visibility

Privacy is another aspect of safety in construction sites, commercial and residential areas. Privacy creates a comfortable working environment. Interlocking safety barriers help to eliminate open spaces that can encourage spying. In return, equipment and other valuable items are secure from potential theft.

Lastly, an unoccupied property welcomes potential misuse if not well secured. Companies need viable solutions to protect vacant buildings and land from fly-tipping, vandalism, and damage. Cost is also a concern for many.

However, there are affordable terms that make acquiring safety barriers easy. You will choose between hiring and buying. Whichever you choose, it is always advisable to secure an area early rather than to wait to take action once you witness a security breach.