DEV Community: vikas

Why Digital Marketing is Important for Small Business

vikas — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 06:10:19 +0000

Introduction
Being the owner of a small business is itself a challenging job. Initially, small businesses usually struggle to find customers, finances, and ideas for surviving in the market. It is so because of the position of big competitors in the market. In addition, small businesses choose to use traditional advertising for generating brand awareness. With such advertisements, awareness can be generated but finding quality leads was still a challenge for these small businesses.

However, this strategy and scenario have changed with the advancement of digital technologies. The rise of social media and changing algorithms of search engines for ranking have given a due chance to small businesses. Most small businesses have even started to go for marketing on these digital platforms. But some are still behind.

However, making use of digital platforms to build brand awareness and generate leads is called the digital marketing technique. The Digital Marketing technique has completely changed the way of marketing a small business.

*What is Digital Marketing? *
Digital marketing is a marketing technique of making use of digital platforms to promote a brand's product and services. This strategy also helps in building brand awareness and generating qualified leads for the businesses. Each strategy requires extensive knowledge and experience for formulating strategies effectively.

Why Digital Marketing is Important for Small Businesses?
Digital marketing is important for a small business because of the reach and accessibility it provides to the businesses. By implementing digital marketing strategies, a business can reap major accessibility and growth benefits. Here are some of the benefits provided by digital marketing that make it important for any small business to adopt all the available digital media channels, like SEO, PPC, ASO, Content.

1)Making Analysis of Competitors
When entering the industry, small businesses need to face high competition from the top players in the market. Standing and matching their efficiency can become highly difficult for them. It is so because businesses aren't efficient in making the analysis of their competitors.

This will provide them with good ideas and learning about marketing. In addition to it, businesses can even choose to not target the areas that have high competition.

2) Understanding the Needs of Customers
While carrying out any business, it becomes essential for marketers to know the needs of the customers. With the help of such understanding, it becomes easier to provide the services in which customers are highly interested. Understanding the needs of customers is important for small businesses to align their efforts in necessary areas. But without digital marketing adoption, it becomes difficult to understand such needs.

Digital marketing allows businesses to track the engagement rates of visitors and leads. This helps the marketers to know the areas where the customers are getting more engaged or showing interest. For instance, for an e-commerce website, a user may be getting more engaged with the clothing products. So, a marketer may provide some better alternatives to clothing products. This increases the chances of sales for the business.

3) Providing great Accessibility to customers
Another point that reflects the importance of digital marketing for small businesses includes great accessibility. Here, accessibility means that when the ease of finding a business online. Many small businesses are available online but they can't be easily found by customers. Rather, their competitors get high traffic and business. This happens because of the higher rank of the competitors on online platforms.

Therefore, it becomes necessary for a small business to use digital marketing strategies to rank its website efficiently. With such tactics, you make your business easily accessible to the customers. This ultimately increases the chances of getting qualified leads and sales in less time.

4) Analyzing and Targeting the Right Audiences
While managing and carrying out marketing tactics for small businesses, it becomes important to align efforts for a group of audiences. Many businesses choose to not target any particular audience group. This reduces their campaign efficiency. Even with traditional marketing, it is impossible to analyze and target the right group of audience.

But with digital marketing, it becomes easier for small businesses to find the right audience group. With the help of tools, a marketer can analyze which audience set requires targeting. This ultimately leads to personalized campaigns and increased chances of getting better-qualified leads.

5) Wider Reach in less Cost
Initially, a small business struggles to find customers. It happens because of the less reach of their business. With the help of traditional advertising, a business can target only local people which may not generate quality results. But when a business makes their business online and adopts digital marketing strategies, they can easily increase their business reach.

With the help of digital marketing practices, it is easier for businesses to make business visible and build brand awareness. Even a single digital marketing campaign may not cost you more. The results achieved from those campaigns will be much higher than the cost incurred. Therefore, different digital marketing strategies and techniques can help businesses to widen their reach at less cost. It is highly essential for any small business.

6) Providing a Personalized Approach
If a small business wants to create a standout image among visitors, it is essential to provide a personalized approach. Most businesses today are adopting the personalized approach to marketing. It is effective in building strong relationships with the customers. It is especially important for the small businesses that are started recently. But a personalized approach through traditional marketing is impossible.

This becomes possible with digital marketing only. With marketing campaigns, a business can provide targeted emails with personalized content for each subscriber. Even the ads can be carried out as per the interest of the customers. Therefore, to stand out in the market competition and ensure survival, a personalized approach is necessary for a small business.

Final Words
Doing business in this competitive world is the most difficult task. It is especially true for the small businesses that have recently started or got hardly hit by pandemics. Such types of businesses require a good marketing system and strategies for bringing the business back on track. For fulfilling this goal, digital marketing can be the best option. All the points mentioned in this article conclude the importance of digital marketing for a small business.

Top 10 Best Webscraper.io Competitors and Alternatives

vikas — Sun, 14 Aug 2022 11:25:43 +0000

If you are in the market for a web scraping software, you will likely come across Webscraper.io as one of your top options. But is it the best choice for you? In this post, we'll compare Webscraper.io to some of its key competitors and alternatives. By the end, you should have a good idea of whether or not Webscraper.io is the right tool for your needs.

**1)PromptCloud Web scraping software
**PromptCloud is a leading web scraping tool that helps the businesses to quickly collect data from online sources. By automating the data collection process, PromptCloud frees businesses from the time-consuming task of manually gathering information from websites. In addition, PromptCloud's powerful data extraction capabilities allow businesses to collect large amounts of data quickly. As a result, PromptCloud is an essential tool for any business that needs to collect data from the web.

**2)Octoparse Web scraping software
**Octoparse is a powerful web scraping tool that enables users to easily extract data from websites. With Octoparse, users can point and click on the data they want to scrape, and the software will automatically generate the code needed to extract the data. Octoparse offers a number of features that make scraping web data easier, such as support for cookies, session management, and CAPTCHA bypass. In addition, Octoparse can be used to scrape data behind login walls and can handle AJAX-based websites.

**3)ParseHub Web scraping software
**Do you need to collect data from the web, but don't know where to start? Look no further than ParseHub! This easy-to-use web scraping software enables you to collect data from any website, regardless of its size or complexity. With just a few clicks, you can extract data such as text, images, and links from web pages.

**4)Webscraper.io Web scraping software
**Webscrape.io is a web scraping software that is particularly useful for extracting data that is not easily accessible, such as contact information, product descriptions, and pricing information. The software is easy to use and offers a variety of features, including the ability to schedule web scraping jobs, export data in multiple formats, and create custom extraction rules. Webscrape.io is an essential tool for anyone who needs to gather data from websites on a regular basis.

*5)ScrapeHero Web scraping software
*ScrapeHero web scraping software enables users to collect data from the web with ease. It offers a simple, user-friendly interface that makes web scraping quick and easy. ScrapeHero also offers a wide range of features, including support for various data formats,Proxy support, and an easy-to-use API. With ScrapeHero, users can quickly and easily collect the data they need from the web.

**6)Zyte Web scraping software
**Zyte (formerly ScrapingHub) is a web scraping software that offers a web-based interface and an API that can be used to access data stored in the software's cloud-based platform. Zyte offers a free trial and a paid subscription plan. The software is available in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Chinese.

**7)Apify Web scraping software
**Apify is a web scraping software that is highly configurable and can be used to crawl and scrape websites of any size and complexity. Apify has a wide range of features, including the ability to create crawlers, scrape dynamic content, and Automate data extraction. It also offers an extensive API that allows developers to extend its functionality. In addition, Apify is constantly being improved and updated with new features and bug fixes.

**8)Mozenda Web scraping software
**Web scraping is a technique for extracting data from websites. It can be used to collect information from a single page or multiple pages. Mozenda is a web scraping software that makes it easy to collect data from websites. It can be used to scrape data from both static and dynamic web pages. Mozenda provides a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to select the data you want to scrape. It also has powerful features for extracting data from complex web pages. Mozenda is an essential tool for anyone who needs to collect data from websites.

**9)Crawlmonster Web scraping software
**Crawlmonster is a web scraping software that lets you easily extract data from websites. It can handle large and complex websites, and can even scrape behind login walls. Crawlmonster is fast and efficient, making it the perfect tool for anyone who needs to gather data from the web. With Crawlmonster, you can rest assured that you'll always get the most accurate and up-to-date information.

10)Diffbot Web scraping software
Diffbot is a web scraping tool that enables developers to extract data from web pages automatically. Unlike many other web scraping tools, Diffbot does not require users to have any programming knowledge. Instead, it uses a series of heuristics to identify the relevant parts of a web page and extract the data accordingly. This makes Diffbot an ideal tool for developers who need to quickly gather data from large numbers of web pages. In addition, Diffbot also provides a number of other features, such as the ability to monitor changes to web pages and the ability to download entire websites for offline scraping. As a result, Diffbot is a powerful and versatile tool that can be used for a variety of tasks.

Conclusion: If you are looking for a web scraping software that is easy to use, reliable, and affordable, we recommend Webscraper.io. However, if you are not happy with the features or performance of Webscraper.io, there are several alternatives available on the market. We have highlighted some of these top Webscraper.io competitors and alternatives in this post, so be sure to check them out before making your final decision. Have you tried any of these other web scraping tools?

Top 10 Best Digital Marketing Agencies in the World

vikas — Sat, 23 Jul 2022 21:05:07 +0000

Introduction

Choosing the right digital marketing agency can be overwhelming. There are so many options and it can be difficult to know who is the best fit for your business. But don't worry, we're here to help! In this post, we will share our list of the top digital marketing agencies in the industry. These agencies are experts in all digital strategies, from SEO to social media marketing to website design. So if you're looking for a reliable partner to help your business grow online, these are the firms you need to consider.

Best Digital Marketing Agencies to Grow Your Business

1)Delante
Delante is a results-driven digital marketing agency that partners with businesses of all sizes to create and execute custom marketing campaigns. They specialize in SEO, PPC, social media, and web design and development. Their team of experts will work with you to understand your unique business goals and develop a customized plan to help you achieve them. Whether you're looking to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, or generate leads, they can help.

2)Poonjan
Poonjan is a full-service marketing agency that specializes in developing and executing PPC campaigns that drive results. Poonjan team of certified experts has over a decade of experience in the industry, and they use their knowledge and expertise to help their clients achieve their marketing goals. Poonjan takes a data-driven approach to everything they do, and they are constantly testing and optimizing their campaigns to ensure that their clients are getting the most bang for their buck. Poonjan believes that PPC is an essential part of any digital marketing strategy, and they are dedicated to helping their clients succeed.

3)Lounge Lizard
Lounge Lizard is an internet marketing agency that specializes in creating custom marketing campaigns for businesses of all sizes. They believe that every business is unique, and they take the time to get to know your business before developing a personalized marketing strategy. Their services include SEO, PPC, social media marketing, and email marketing. Lounge Lizard also offers web design and development services to help you create a website that is optimized for search engines and conversion.

4)Titan Growth
Titan Growth is a that helps businesses to grow their online presence. They offer a range of services, including SEO, social media marketing, and email marketing. Their team of experts will work with you to create a custom plan that fits your specific needs. Titan Growth believes that every business is different, and they tailor their services to each individual client. Whether you're looking to increase brand awareness or drive sales, they can help you achieve your goals.

5)Mayple
Mayple understands that the key to successful digital marketing is understanding your target audience and creating engaging content that resonates with them. That's why they take a data-driven approach to their work, using cutting-edge technology to track user behavior and identify opportunities for improvement. Whether you're looking to boost traffic to your website or improve your conversion rate, they can help. Mayple team of experienced professionals will work with you to develop a customized strategy that meets your unique needs.

Final Conclusion: If you're looking for a top digital marketing agency that can help your business grow, look no further. We've compiled a list of the best agencies in the industry, so you can find the perfect partner to help you achieve your marketing goals. Whether you need assistance with SEO, social media, or paid advertising, these agencies have got you covered.

Top 5 Best Shipping Aggregators in India

vikas — Sat, 27 Mar 2021 20:25:54 +0000

Best Shipping Aggregators in India

If your business has reached the stage of growth where monthly order volumes are greater than 500, you’re probably looking to expand your shipping solutions. One of the first 3rd party logistics service providers you’ll look at is eCommerce Shipping/Courier/Logistics Aggregators in India. They are essentially 3PLs that have existing partnerships with the top established shipping companies. So when you’re first looking for multiple courier partners, you can skip the rigorous process of selecting 2-3 out of the 120+ operational shipping companies, and just focus on fulfillment.

You also have the added benefit of being able to easily integrate with shipping partners through an aggregator, which saves you time and money in upgrading your tech capabilities. However, with over 20 aggregators spread out across the country, determining which aggregator to select can become as taxing a process as choosing a shipping partner.

Checklist of Top 5 Best Shipping Aggregators in India
That is why we’ve determined which 5 aggregators are the best in the biz, so you can make a quick and informed decision.

1. ShipRocket

ShipRocket is the most popular shipping aggregator currently in operation and caters to numerous big-name clients like Gillette and Bira. This company was founded in 2012 and has since grown into one of the largest aggregators, with over 240 employees handling their operations for small, medium and large enterprises. They are known for their effective dashboard for analytics that covers numerous important metrics.

When it comes to ShipRocket’s pricing mechanisms, they offer 3 payment plans to allow you to avail of the most cost-effective shipping solutions within your requirements. Their Professional Plan is the most preferred as the rate levied is Rs 23/500 grams, and it is inclusive of multi-marketplace integrations as well as international shipping. Their Lite plan is Rs29/500 grams, and only allows for 1 marketplace integration. The final is their Enterprise plan which is completely customizable based on business needs.

2. Shyplite

Shyplite, founded only in 2016, has experienced rapid growth and is now the logistics aggregator for major e-commerce companies like Gadget Now and the Gourmet Jar. With over 100 employees manning their operations, they facilitate smooth integration with over 16 different shipping companies and ensure successful delivery to over 26,000+ pin codes.

Shyplite is also known for its extremely cost-effective solutions, charging enterprises only on the basis of the dimensions of each shipment and the delivery destination. One of the crowning features of Shyplite is their custom tracking page and its extremely effective customer support team that helps enterprises resolve their shipping issues.

3. Pickrr

Pickrr is another favorite of e-commerce businesses, especially those that cater to more niche areas in the country. Founded in 2015, Pickrr and its 50+ employees specialize in providing speedy delivery to all parts of the country. Partnered with 10 shipping companies, they serve a range of over 27,000 different pin codes.

Rates are determined depending on the volume of orders fulfilled each month. Each shipment costs Rs.29 when monthly order volume is less than 1000, Rs.26 when monthly order volume is between 1000 and 5000, and finally Rs.22 when monthly order volume is greater than 5000. This makes it among the cheapest options for large enterprises.

4. Vamaship

Vamaship Also began its journey in 2015 and has since risen to employ the services of 10+ shipping partners. They provide their services across 27,000+ pin codes. Their onboarding process is by and large considered quick, easy and cost-effective. It also offers multiple marketplace integrations.

The most popular feature they offer is their service for doorstep quality checks on returning items. This helps to reduce the number of losses that occur in fraudulent returns.

5. ShipKaro

ShipKaro is another rising star in the logistics aggregation industry. It is, however, the youngest of the aggregators on this list, having been started on in 2017, with a goal to meet the rising logistics demands. With 100+ employees working for them, serving 20,000+ pin codes with 13+ shipping partners, they provide extremely competitive prices for bulk shipments, though that is dependent on the payment plan you select.

Their standard rate for shipping normal orders is Rs.32/500 grams, making it among the more expensive. This is for their individual plan which offers limited access to shipping partners and no bulk-shipping. Their larger plans, the business plan and the enterprise plan offer a much larger variety of services and resources and are levied at Rs 1499/month and Rs 2999/month.

Final Note

When it comes to aggregators, the major things you want to look at are pin code reach (i.e., serviceability) and payment terms. Beyond that, the value-added services offered by each aggregator can also go a long way in improving the delivery experience. All in all, it comes down to which aggregators are most equipped to help you optimize your delivery operations and currently these 5 have made it to the very top of that list.

How to Choose the Best Courier Company in India for eCommerce Business

vikas — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 13:46:58 +0000

Choose the Best Courier Company in India for eCommerce Business

Finding the right courier partner for your e-commerce business is like searching for treasure. All you need is a road map to point you in the right direction. With that in mind, we’ve compiled an exhaustive list of the map you need to follow, i.e., the criteria you need to consider, to find the perfect shipping company.

List of Points to Take Care of While Selecting the Best Courier Company in India
In today's world, the success of any size eCommerce business heavily depends on selecting the right courier service provider. Some of the major factors include COD (cash on delivery), Product size, less percentage of RTO (return to origin), shipping delivery time period, cost per k.g., etc. Further, you can check the ClickPost blog post to know in detail about the list of top 10 best eCommerce courier services provider companies in India for the eCommerce business and further ensure 100% growth. In the below section, all these points are well explained with examples in detail.

1.Delivery Range and Capacity

Whichever courier partner you tie-up with needs to fulfill your most basic requirements, i.e., they must be capable of handling the volume of orders you receive on a daily basis and they must be able to service the range of pin-codes and locations you require.

2. Average Weight of Cargo

The weight of the cargo can impact the mode of transportation that needs to be used and the safety of the product in transit. This applies to both heavyweight and lightweight products. Any courier partner you integrate with would accordingly have to be able to safely handle products of that general size. For example, BlueDart is a preferred carrier for heavy cargo, like furniture while companies with smaller cargo like jewelry prefer Ekart.

3. Shipping Rates

This may seem relatively straightforward but the ideal shipping rates for you are based on your volume of orders. Some carriers may charge an overall monthly fee for a sum-total of orders. However, you may find it more beneficial to pay per shipment. You also have to keep an eye out for additional costs like those listed below.

4. Additional Costs

Additional and hidden costs can end up piling on to your monthly payments to carriers if you’re not careful. Being prepared and aware of what hidden costs may pop up later, like fuel surcharge, COD handling charges or labor costs, will allow you to better estimate what your monthly costs will be.

5. Options for Speedy Delivery

Now, customers want products faster and faster. So depending on how demanding your customers are, you may want to ensure your courier partners can provide a wide variety of speedy delivery options, like hyperlocal delivery, same-day delivery, next-day delivery and express delivery.

6. Percentage of RTOs

The bigger your company gets, the more cumbersome RTOs become. Eventually, you’ll need to specifically target reducing your RTO numbers. Checking the methods used by a carrier to reduce RTOs and their overall RTO rates in the past can help you understand whether that particular carrier can actively help you keep RTO down, or at least not bring those numbers up.

7. Specialized Services

Depending on the product you have, you may find yourself in need of more specific services to assure smooth delivery. Express delivery is the most basic form of a specialized service. Other couriers may provide services like temperature-controlled transit, insurance and security for high value products, customized packaging, and storage options.

8. Delivery Process

How a carrier handles the end-to-end logistics of each shipment is very important. The modes of transportation they have available, the routes they follow, and the locations of their in-transit storage and fulfillment facilities can tell you how long deliveries will typically take and what is the likelihood of shipments being stuck or delayed.

9. Provision of Proof of Delivery

Proof of delivery is an important part of delivery services that not all carriers provide. Simple things like taking a photograph at the time of delivery or taking the recipient's signature can help you avoid fake deliveries or incorrect deliveries. So if fake deliveries are a frequent occurrence for you, this may be a priority.

10. Returns Management

Every carrier provides reverse logistics services but the mechanisms and methods they use may differ from carrier to carrier. These can determine the safety of the product in its return journey. Some carriers may also levy additional charges for certain parts of the return management process.

11.Insured or Secured Deliveries

In case your e-commerce company deals with high-value products, fragile products or extremely large, heavy or bulky items, you may want to have your orders insured for the journey or handled with added safety precautions. This can help you avoid unnecessary losses caused by in-transit damage.

12. Number of Stuck Shipments

Stuck shipments are a truly frustrating part of the delivery process, for both end-customers and e-commerce businesses. This is because the shipment is essentially in limbo and remains at risk. A carrier that has minimal stuck shipments or a clear mechanism for handling them can help keep cancellations at a minimum.

13. Value-Added Services

Value-added services can encompass a wide variety of services and initiatives that help push your sales numbers up, improve customer experience and promote your company. This can be through customized branded packaging, pushing offers via tracking updates. It can also include added security and safety options and quality checks prior to returns.

14. Tech Benefits

Different courier companies in India make use of different technological advancements to provide different services, such as automating certain parts of the return management or NDR management process. The more advanced the tech they use, the more benefits you can gain from it, provided they are applied smartly.

15. Previous Record

This is the essence of any shopping experience, whether you’re shopping for phones or for courier partners. You need to check reviews from previous customers, see available records of their performance and determine whether they fulfill your needs, whether those needs happen to be low costs, specialized services or active reduction of RTOs.

Top 5 Best Courier Companies for Online Businesses
1)Delhivery **
**2)Gati
3)Ecom Express
4)FedEx
5)Blue Dart