But the story of the farmer and the mobile app is more than just accessing statistical information on-the-go.  Monitoring devices, sensors and machine diagnostics are driving massive innovation in agriculture and providing mountains of real-time data to farmers. AgTech companies are meeting farmers’ data needs with solutions that allow farmers to access data and draw insights that make a dramatic difference in the bottom line.

Farmers are responding. In today’s infographic, featured on Food + Tech Connect and originally created by Float Mobile Learning, they found 94 percent of farmers already own mobile or smartphones. In general, mobile phones have outpaced landlines many times over. Connecting their smartphones and their farming data means that farmers will increase efficiency. Float found mobile technology will cut agricultural water consumption by as much as half.

How does it happen? One example is the company Farmlogs. They have a mobile app that is used in combination with a subscription for access to monitoring data like rainfall tracking, soil composition maps, inventory management and more. In their Flow package, Farmlogs also employs connected sensors, combining an IoT product with a valuable service through the power of a subscription business model.

For more about the rise of mobile agriculture, see today’s infographic below.

Learn how to align your subscription business with the power of APIs

The post Ecommerce Eye Candy — The Farmer and the Mobile App [Infographic] appeared first on cleverbridge.

Internet of Things (IoT)

Study: Rush to Connect to Internet of Things Could Open Security Gaps | Chicago Tribune

An AT&T study found that while many businesses are jumping into the Internet of Things, few have considered the significant security challenges that face connected device ecosystems. The survey found that, “only 14 percent of companies looking at or already using connected devices have auditing processes in place to track those devices and their security.” The study also found companies are behind in incorporating important stake holders in their discussion of IoT security, saying, “Only 17 percent of companies surveyed in the study involve their boards of directors when considering IoT security.”

Colm Lennon, founder of Haka Products, a Chicago startup that helps companies take new products and innovations to market, points out that without leadership involved, departments vital to the security of connected devices will fail to work together. “All of the roles in this connected Internet of Things space, they have to really work closely together if the company wants to innovate at great speed but also innovate with the intent of doing so to protect their customers, to protect themselves and to protect their partners,” he said. “It can’t just be engineering running with this thing and learning it on their own.”

For any business supporting connected devices, the key to securing your ecosystem is in crafting an agile strategy that involves all stakeholders. Succeeding in data security means increased customer loyalty and satisfaction while hedging against the massive financial downsides to suffering a serious breach.

The Future of Mobile Purchases

Most Digital Buyers Will Make Purchases via a Smartphone by 2017 | eMarketer

According to eMarketer’s recent study, 51.2 percent of digital buyers will use a smartphone for their transaction by 2017. They also say 2017 will be a benchmark year as $75.5 billion, or 50 percent of all retail mcommerce sales, will be transacted on smartphones. That will be up from 48 percent in 2016.

These trends are important for any digital goods vendor looking to capture the attention of consumers. Having a mobile optimized site or dedicated mobile app will be essential for future success.

According to Yory Wurmser, retail analyst for eMarketer, “In order to get people to make purchases on their phones, retailers need to make it as easy as possible for consumers … That means fully optimized mobile websites, a checkout process with few steps, and fully personalized merchandising.”

APIs

Why CIOs need to plan for API deprecation | CIO

CIO brings us an important reminder that APIs, like all other technical assets, can suffer from deprecation, or technical debt. In other words, antiquated code in your system, which may not be compatible with newer technologies being employed across the market, demands your programmers’ attention — either to fix, revise or replace it. The mere presense of outdated code represents a liability and a future expense. This is true for your APIs too.

In an interview with Brian Pontarelli, CEO of Inversoft, we learn about keeping APIs current and their users up-to-date. Even with the greatest care, sometimes the systems break down. “We try to do feature upgrades with API compatibility four to six times a year. We break our API compatibility once every two years,” said Pontarelli.

For any executives involved in the process, Pontarelli’s tip is simple: stay current. “If you’re staying current, the pain of a deprecation is going to be less than if you’re years behind. It takes communication and planning. I think that’s key to any relationship between a vendor and a company.”

Global Tax Compliance

Digital Goods Taxation | Taxamo

This piece from Taxamo looks at recent legislation in several countries that taxes digital goods and how their business is helping the market cope. As the digital goods industry grows, governments don’t want to be left out of the game — and it’s a big game. “Norway, one of the pioneers of such taxation, introduced its value-added tax on eServices (VOES) scheme in July 2011. It has since recouped €283.5m, as of August 2015.”

And this trend is likely to continue. Taxamo notes, “As traditional tax bases begin to erode, tax authorities across the globe are recalibrating their tax collection systems to include new types of services. There has been a domino effect of tax authorities adopting … digital VAT and this trend is not likely to change in the coming years.”

Don’t forget to check out our Subscription Resources page today.

The post February Ecommerce Digest appeared first on cleverbridge.

When a farmer decides when to plant, when to tend, and when to harvest their crop, they need to know specifics about:

• Weather patterns
• Soil composition
• Local pests and weeds
• Disease trends

Last week’s Agriculture Technology Innovation Summit, held by the University of Illinois, highlighted just how companies that work with data are making connections in the agricultural world.

The generalized information once tallied in a farmers’ almanac can now be customized for individual farmers. These farmers are using analytic tools any webmaster would recognize but applied to their specific farm and their specific challenges. If in the past a farmer tracked weather reports, today they can gain climatology insights based on real time data. Where before, farmers gathered various information about their soil and local pests, today they can review a dashboard with a full field characteristics report.

Why does it matter? Well, for companies that have honed their expertise in data, the opening of the agricultural market to their services represents a significant market expansion. As more data flows from fields, farmers need data-savvy partners to put the pieces together.

And of course, not only will the efficiency farmers realize lead to more profitable harvests and technological partnerships, it will also make them more productive, ensuring that we are able to feed a growing population. Enjoy the infographic below.

Learn how to nurture your customer relationships like a newly planted seedling with our complimentary guide: Attracting and Acquiring New Subscribers. 

The post Ecommerce Eye Candy — The Role of Data Science in Agriculture [Infographic] appeared first on cleverbridge.

The creation of the World Wide Web and the launch of the online shopping experience helped usher in the first hyperadoption craze. Do you remember your first introduction to the Internet? Recall realizing the ease and efficiency of shopping online for what you needed compared with visiting a brick-and-mortar store. Suddenly, consumers had more at their fingertips. In the last couple of decades alone, thousands of innovations have been successfully launched thanks to hyperadoption, and millions of users of services like Uber and Airbnb have signed up.

Why Do Customers Hyperadopt?

Many tech crazes, like wearable devices, have emerged over the years. What encourages consumers to adopt new technologies so quickly? Forrester has determined that there are two psychological reasons why hyperadoption occurs. First, adopting new things no longer costs as much as it did in the past. Second, today marketers can offer benefits that easily overcome any loss aversion. All this hyperadoption means that in the years to come, connectivity, cloud architecture, big data analytics and artificial intelligence will influence how we:

• Protect and control our physical world
• Interact with technology
• Maintain our well-being
• Connect with each other

We can already see hints of this in the Internet of Things market.

Tips for Marketing Success

Though filled with promise, hyperadoption creates a challenge for marketers. It is an environment where consumers are so quick to try — and discard — new digital experiences. If a consumer fails to connect with your product, they will simply move on to the next thing. To compete in the face of this disruption, there are a few tactics that marketers can do to ensure that their brand survives the era of hyperadoption.

Tip 1: Reduce the risk of trying your product

It is possible to build experiences with your brand that are free or nearly free. When you decrease the cost, you naturally decrease the risk for consumers to try your product in terms of their investment of dollars, time and privacy. With the risk of trying your product reduced, consumption of your product increases. A great example of this is WhatsApp. By offering this service for free, this app has reduced the risk of trying it. When you reduce the risk of new behaviors for customers, they lose less with a negative outcome and gain more from a positive outcome. This increases consumer interest and adoption, creating a network effect that fuels hyperadoption.

Tip 2: Focus on doing only one thing very well

Positioning your brand to do too many things well makes it difficult for customers to perceive your brand’s value, and it puts cognitive stress on the consumer. Airbnb, for example, has found success enabling anyone with a spare mattress or room to run their own bed and breakfast. YouTube receives more views than any traditional TV channel. And there is Wikipedia, which has created the world’s largest repository of knowledge. Each of these companies has succeeded by focusing on their differentiator and building out one key piece of functionality well. Simply adding new features doesn’t increase value and make a product more appealing; it adds complexity to your message and the user experience.

Tip 3: Continually add value and new experiences

According to Forrester, one challenge for marketers today is the fact that consumers connect less emotionally to new products. In the past, adoption decisions happened after thoughtful consideration (i.e. read reviews, discussed with friends, viewed a demo, etc.), and then consumers discovered the value and developed an emotional connection. Consumers use less of these channels now when making adoption decisions, meaning less emotional energy is used. But creating a product/service ecosystem is one way to create value and retain customers. Consider the ecosystem that both Apple and Nest have created within their product line. Once you purchase a product within the Nest ecosystem (say, the connected thermostat) and connect it with another Nest product, you create an ecosystem of connected devices that add even more value through their connectivity.

Tip 4: Take caution — hyperadoption can lead to hyperabandonment

No matter how consistently your brand delivers value and positive new experiences to your customers, hyperabandonment—fleeing a brand as quickly as joined—is a possibility. High rates of abandonment are evidence that consumers are willing to try new low-cost experiences without buyer’s remorse. For example, consumers lose interest in apps and barely use the majority they have downloaded. How can you keep this fast-moving group connected with your brand? Use speed and responsiveness to stay ahead of their needs and expectations. Continually reacquire your audience’s attention by responding to their needs and rapidly adding to the product experience, and become hyper-responsive to invite your customers to experience these new outcomes.

Keystone

The era of hyperadoption is here and is something all marketers need to embrace. Consumers will be offered an unprecedented number of exciting, interesting and useful products and services, many at little to no cost. And brands will be challenged to maintain relevancy with giving customers what they want in a world of stiff competition. Marketers who anticipate and strategize on the outcomes consumers demand of their brand will survive (and thrive) in this new era.

In the era of hyperadoption, attracting and acquiring new subscribers is more important than ever. Download our complimentary guide today.

Andrea Bailif-Gush is the Product Marketing Manager at cleverbridge

The post Four Tips for Marketing Success in the Era of Hyperadoption appeared first on cleverbridge.

For the omnichannel shopper, their journey can start with a search on a mobile device for product info and price, which spurs a visit to a retailer’s website or an in-store visit. If a company is on its omnichannel game, communication will be seamless and proactive throughout the process, providing messages and even promotions along the way.

A hallmark of the omnichannel trend is the end of the brick-and-mortar vs. ecommerce duality. For example on Black Friday this year, Amazon dominated ecommerce sales, accounting for 35 percent of all transactions. Even so, four of the top five ecommerce sellers were traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.

While ecommerce sales still only make up 9 percent of total sales, the data show most holiday retail sales are now influenced by digital interactions, with 64 percent of all in-store sales being influenced by digital channels. Enjoy today’s infographic and read more about why meeting the omnichannel consumer’s needs improves your bottom line.

Download our Maximizing Holiday Ecommerce Guide, one of the Six Guides on Ecommerce Essentials, today.

The post Ecommerce Eye Candy — Omnichannel Holiday Retailing [Infographic] appeared first on cleverbridge.

As we discussed earlier this month, ad blockers pose a serious challenge to every industry that relies on advertisements to drive online revenue. Apple’s release certainly sparked the larger conversation, but is the iOS 9 ad blocker as dire as everyone says?

The days when only a desktop or Android user could block ads have now passed, as we enter a brave new world where iOS devices will block ads as well or better than those other platforms. What impact this change will have is not yet known, but much of the language around the digital marketing community is near apocalyptic.

The Mobile Majority says we can relax. Apple’s addition is an extension in their Safari app, and will only affect mobile site browsing. As author Cameron Fitchett points out, “We’re at a point now in 2015 where an average consumer spends only 12 percent of their time on their mobile phone in a web browser.”

Take a look below to see Fitchett’s conclusions about ad blocking’s implications for digital advertisers. See just how deep its impact is and what other digital marketing streams may be targeted next.

Do The Mobile Majority’s numbers resonate with what you see? Let us know if ad blocking software presents your business a challenge or an opportunity in the comments below.

The post Ecommerce Eye Candy — Mobile Ad Blocking [Infographic] appeared first on cleverbridge.

Our Ecommerce Digest dips its toe into the problem of monetizing the Internet of Things, facilitating mobile purchases, using video in search engine marketing, and changing our mindset on the role of channel partners.

Internet of Things

The IoT Monetization Problem | Re/code

As more sensors become embedded into all kinds of devices, the growing Internet of Things (IoT) turns manufacturers into software vendors and disrupts virtually every market you can imagine. According this article from Re/code, the challenge for vendors is turning innovative technologies and large amounts of data into financial gain. More and more companies will find ways to connect devices with information about how those devices are used. Vendors of IoT products and services have to figure out how to manage licenses and collect revenue. Without these abilities, they lose out on a lot of potential revenue.

Mobile Design and User Experience

PayPal’s One Touch Checkout Service Now Available Across Europe and Australia | VentureBeat

Global Internet use continues to rise. According to one study from We Are Social, a little over three billion people, about 42 percent of Earth’s population, have Internet access. Additionally, 62 percent of web pages are visited through desktops and laptops while 39 percent go through through phones and tablets. We all know from personal experience how frustrating it is to fill out form fields from a mobile keyboard, so with all these mobile users, vendors must create more fluid payment submission processes.

Similar to Amazon’s 1-click shopping technique, PayPal now has One Touch for mobile users. This seems like an excellent way to facilitate conversions, but it is also a double-edged sword: When all it takes is a single action to make a purchase, accidental orders are inevitably going to rise.

Video and Paid Search

‘A Gusher of Money’: Google Testing Video Ads in Search Results, Industry Sources Say | Digiday

We all intuitively understand the power of video content, and marketing to YouTube users through AdWords for Video has been popular for a while now. According to this article from Digiday, Google is testing out the display of video ads on search engine results pages (SERPs). This feels like an inevitable evolution. Over the years, we’ve seen rich snippets added to results. And who doesn’t find their googling enhanced by the Knowledge Graph? The main question is, will video on SERPs work? It seems that it goes a long way towards increasing brand awareness, but does it generate revenue? And will video advertisements interrupt our searches and create a less user-friendly experience?

Channel Partners

Through-Channel Marketing: The Channel Is More Than a Sales Channel | Forrester Research

According to the author, Tim Harmon of Forrester Research, the relationship between vendor and channel partner has become more complicated in recent years. In the past, manufacturers or vendors created a product, found a market, and relied on channel partners to find and sell to customers. Now, companies have to view their channel partners almost as an extension of their brand, with the ability to enhance or damage it. Vendors would do well to actively support their channel partners and work closely with them to build the right kind of relationship with customers.

The post August Ecommerce Digest appeared first on cleverbridge.

“Sometime making a sale comes down to catching the customer in the right mood and time of day. This is aperature, and it’s different for each customer.” – via Signal

When you watched a show like Mad Men, you saw a pretty simple formula for getting consumers to buy products. All businesses needed to do was create a compelling message, and make sure it got broadcast through radio, television (which had very few channels) and print media.

In today’s mega-media world, businesses are confounded by the sheer amount of places their target audience inhabits. Measuring the success of advertising dollars, which was always tricky, has grown even more difficult and painful.

Now, in addition to those old-timey advertising channels, businesses have affiliate marketing, search engine marketing, retargeted marketing, email marketing and social media marketing in which to work their magic of persuasion. They’re also contending with not a few competitors for the evanescent attention of customers.

Signal, who provide real-time, cross-channel marketing technologies, sent us this infographic which does a great job illustrating these aformentioned challenges to the fractured customer journey.

Their solution? The three “C’s”

Create consistency across all device

For example, many of your customers probably open your emails on their phone, perhaps on their commute to work, but do not click-through to your site immediately. Instead, they go about their day, and perhaps at lunch, remember the email from earlier. Only then do they google your company name and visit your website. Somehow, someway, you need to be able to identify this customer and tailor an experience unique to them. You’re creating barriers to purchase if they have to start picking up different devices to find the information they were looking for at a time they wanted to utilize that information.

Capture customer attention quickly

Quick (and I mean quick) load times go a long way to keeping customers clicking on your site and on track to submitting payment, or, at least, reaching out to a sales rep. Make sure that large image files and videos meant to help customers don’t contribute to their abandoning your site before you’ve even had the chance to say hello. This can especially problematic in responsive design—another must in this cross-device world we live in.

Calibrate for customer aperature

“Sometime making a sale comes down to catching the customer in the right mood and time of day. This is aperature, and it’s different for each customer.” So explains this infographic, and it’s certainly a difficult challenge to overcome. Companies spend an almost inestimable amount of time and money creating clever marketing campaigns. And they’re largely successful in matching the right message to the right person. The only problem is that person had a bad day and suddenly—deleted!

Bottom line: Even though you can’t always get the right person in the right mood at the right time of day, you still need to cover all your other bases. And just maybe, your quick-loading, mobile-friendly site speaks to your intended target’s concerns and will overcome all the other inertia involved in the purchaser’s journey.

The post Ecommerce Eye Candy—Tracking the Customer Purchase Journey Across Devices [Infographic] appeared first on cleverbridge.

Business Goals and User Experience Above All Else

Maybe you’re using a WordPress theme and stuffing your content into a template. Ideally, though, you want to design your site around your business goals, not vice versa. The main thing is to know the purpose of each of your pages. Once you figure that out, you can design each one according to its unique needs.

Bad web designers say, “Oh, here is a new trend. I am going to implement it.” That is valuing style over substance. Good web designers say, “What problem are we trying to solve?” and then set out to fulfill their objective.

To design a website properly, the first thing you need to do is write down your goals. After you determine your goals, write up a hierarchy of information that informs the design. The hierarchy should tell you where content belongs within the context of your site. That means trying to get visitors to visit product pages before shopping carts and understanding that homepages aren’t deep dives into the technical aspects of a product’s capabilities. Consider what you want the user to do as well, since the point of every webpage is to get the user to complete an action.

You will need to consider all the various types of pages that constitute your site, such as:

• Homepage
• Landing pages
• Product pages
• Shopping cart and checkout pages
• Confirmation pages
• Help pages

Testing …

As I said above, you want to make sure your webpages are accomplishing your business goals and that users are taking appropriate actions. Unfortunately, you have a disadvantage in confirming whether or not this is happening, and are inevitably affected by visual suppression: You have looked at your design for so long that you no longer see it as a new user might.

One solution to this problem is to grab anyone and give them the one-second test. Have them glance at what you’ve built, and then ask them what they saw. Did they notice what you wanted them to notice? Their responses will tell you things such as whether your sidebar is too bright, your logo is too prominent, or your CTA isn’t conspicuous enough.

… and Monitoring

Once everything is live, you need to monitor activity. Depending on the page and its goals, success is measured in terms of:

• Click thru rates
• Time on page
• Bounce rates
• Form completions
• Cart abandonment
• Conversion rates
• Pick rates for cross-sells and up-sells

Mobile First and Foremost

If you haven’t yet already, it’s time to jump on the mobile bandwagon. As cleverbridge Senior Designer James Mikrut told me, “Mobile design isn’t a trend; it’s a necessity.” It helps your users digest content more easily and makes the content more accessible.

Internet access no longer requires sitting at a desktop computer at your house or local cybercafé. You now pay your bills online while waiting at the bus stop. According to a recent study by Pew, two-thirds of Americans (over 200 million individuals) own smartphones, while 15 percent (45 million) access the Internet exclusively through their smartphones.

More importantly, Google is starting to penalize mobile-hostile designs. Last November, Google warned companies that mobile friendly sites would be highlighted in SERPs. What started as a helping, friendly note to users is now a business requirement, and your site will be punished for non-compliance.

The upside of the mobile revolution and its attendant focus on responsive design is that instead of creating pages that may or may not look good on different screen sizes, your company can design clean, legible and readable pages for any screen size. For example, according to Mikrut, full width websites are a natural side effect of responsive structure because web designers are no longer afraid of making something too big for small viewports.

A lovely example of a software company who understands the above point is Avira. Notice how clean their page looks, in terms of the readability and legibility of the type, on both a desktop and mobile screen.

Popups, Interstitials and Don’t Leave Layers

Popups, interstitials and don’t leave layers can be valuable as long as they don’t hijack your users’ attention. A good use of a popup may be a video on your homepage as MacKeeper and Nitro use.

If you absolutely have to use popups to try to increase subscribers to your email list, consider the examples of Impact blog and MarketingProfs blog. The former has a small bar that slides down from the top of the page and allows you to continue to read their content, while the latter interrupts your reading and demands that you deal with their message on their terms. It’s the difference between a classy professional and an attention starved child.

Your website’s design influences conversions. Do you think your offering is more attractive to your customers when you showcase an outdated look with boring typography and a non-responsive design? An attractive design based on a well-thought-out strategy is the honey that catches the flies.

Keystone

Web design isn’t about implementing the latest trend — it’s about accomplishing your business goals.

The post Three Important Musings for Ecommerce Web Design appeared first on cleverbridge.

We also offered our readers six guides on essential ecommerce strategy and tactics, including information on handling VAT rates, conversion optimization tips, making the most of November and December ecommerce, and other crucial elements of ecommerce success.

We hope your holiday season ecommerce plans are in place and that you’re starting to see a bump in traffic and sales. Now, get ready for tips on ecommerce fraud prevention, Singles Day ecommerce, the importance of mobile-friendly sites, the basis for effective loyalty programs and the evolution of social media marketing.

Fraud Prevention

How I Detect Ecommerce Fraud | Practical Ecommerce
While the amount of attempted fraud transactions have decreased the last five years, the actual amount of money stolen by fraudsters increased. When you process payments through your online store you can’t rely solely on your bank for proper fraud screening. This post emphasizes that your understanding of your business, and your understanding of what constitutes a typical order, should impact your fraud prevention strategy. Criminal attempts to steal and use your customers’ payment information are subtle, and your revenue is at stake. Make sure you are doing everything you can to maximize valid orders and minimize fraudulent ones.

Global Ecommerce

Singles Day | MarketWatch
This post from MarketWatch reports that Alibaba, the Amazon of China, raked in over nine billion dollars on November 11, which is about four times as many sales generated online by all U.S. companies combined on Cyber Monday in 2013. For merchants looking to expand their sales beyond North America and Western Europe, start establishing your presence in new territory using evergreen localization tactics, and make sure to take advantage of local shopping bonanzas.

Mobile SEO

Mobile Laggards Beware – Google is Exposing Your Shortcomings | Forrester
Everyone knows from personal experience how frustrating it can be to click on a link from your phone or tablet and land on a page that has not been optimized for mobile. By placing little notes on search results, Google now lets searchers know whether the site they are about to click on is optimized for mobile or not. Certainly, you can understand how these notes might affect a customer’s likelihood to click on your company’s link. Thankfully, this post has resources for getting your site started on the road toward mobile friendliness.

Loyalty Programs

Smart Framing as the Basis for Effective Loyalty Programs | Nir and Far
Alright, raise your hands: how many loyalty programs have you joined that you haven’t used except the day you enrolled? The results of a loyalty program test in this post indicate that the reward of a loyalty program may be less important than how that reward is presented. This presentation ultimately influences a customer’s behavior with your brand.

Social Media Marketing

Let’s Get Social | Six Pixels of Separation
Social is a complex channel, and many companies wonder how to approach it or if it is even worthwhile. Is social media a form of advertising or is it a content channel? If you don’t have the creative budget for an Old Spice or Oreo sized campaign, should you even bother? In this podcast, Mitch Joel and Jason Keath discuss whether companies should be focusing on creating “high intensity” pieces of content and using social as a distribution channel. Also discussed is how to connect social media followers with your CRM.

Do you have any suggestions for improving fraud prevention, how to enter the Chinese software market, SEO, loyalty programs or social media? Let us know in the comment section below.

The post November Ecommerce Digest appeared first on cleverbridge.