Category: Mobile Marketing

The insatiable thirst customers have for higher amount of mobile data is growing tremendously.

The stats from Statista suggest that usage of mobile data has increased from 7 exabytes to 17 in a span of two years and will be almost 49 exabytes in 2021. The compound annual growth rate of the increase is about 47 percent. The everyday mobile activities like video calls, voice calls, social media usage and e-commerce are the key drivers behind this increased mobile traffic.

Telecom operators now face a massive increase in their network costs due to this data explosion. Stats also suggest that the cost for accessing and backhauling network will almost double in the next five years.

So, the big question now is how operators can manage this data explosion?

The answer lies in the effective implementation of ‘Network Optimization and Data Monetization.’

Focusing on these two parameters will enable operators to provide bandwidth in a more cost-efficient way and benefit from the expected rise in data. Here are some ways mobile operators can intelligently expand their network capacity and monetize data:

• Optimizing Video Delivery

An explosion of mobile video consumption is likely to drive the anticipated mobile data growth over the next few years. According to Cisco, mobile video will make up 78 per cent of all global mobile data traffic by 2021.

However, it is found that more than half of all video sessions are abandoned before the subscriber reaches midpoint. Accordingly, telco operators can reduce wasted bandwidth by closely matching the download to the playback speed (pacing) as opposed to downloading the full video.

• Intensifying Traffic Shaping

Traffic shaping can be used to prevent network congestion, alter user behaviour, and optimise monetization of data usage. Most operators are already using basic tools for steering user behaviour and limiting peak usage, either by rate-limiting after a certain download volume, implementing tariffs with usage caps, or time-based tariffs.

• Density Geographies

Congestion in network and scarcity of spectrum problems are different in diverse geographic locations.  They apply to a small portion of the operator carriers’ coverage area. Carriers can set prices based on the regional realities of the data usage. Adopting the yield-management practices and driving requirement-based usage in underutilized areas improve profits.

• Quality and Traffic Prioritization

Customers who need a higher quality of service are willing to pay more for it. These segments can be targeted by MNOs to capture incremental value. This can be done by offering quality-of-service guarantees; thus, ‘prioritising’ premium traffic during times of potential network congestion.

• Time-of-Day Pricing

One of the greatest challenges for MNOs is ‘peak hours’. Just as some voice plans are known to have different charges for peak and off-peak periods (often lower rates at night), we can expect operators charge varying rates depending on the time of day by ‘de-averaging’ data pricing. A study by Nielson shows that mobile data usage on social apps is at their peak for four hours a day. So, the telco operators can adjust speed and charges according to the usage time.

Pricing by Data Type

Though differences in types of video usage give operators some flexibility, rising demand for data-heavy video will still be the biggest strain on most networks. This can be countered by plans that are priced by data type. For instance, offering unlimited internet and e-mail usage but pricing video traffic based on quantity consumed.

Stats from Android Central suggest that for an hour of HD video streaming more than 1 GB of data is used. As mobile video streaming has the largest growth rate of all mobile content categories, charges can be defined accordingly.

Conclusion:

With the enormous surge in mobile data, MNOs should have the capacity to monetize this traffic, yet to do so; they require unique visibility into the makeup and usage of the data itself. To gain such visibility, internet solutions can help them handle the data explosion more intelligently.

Managing data explosion is a big challenge but implementing the right broadband solutions will enable MNOs to close the revenue gap and increase profitability.

They say the devil is in the details. This means a disaster is lurking somewhere within your website. And, you are likely to overlook it if you aren’t careful. To help you avoid becoming the next victim of dastardly details, we’ve compiled a few common oversights that can kill your business. It’s all about getting back to the basics to establish a fresh and functional ecommerce website.

Give a Clear Path to Checkout

How many pages do your shoppers have to click through to complete their orders? Just one? Up to five? If you haven’t asked yourself this question before, it’s time you paid attention. This is more important than you might think.

Cart abandonment is the bane of the ecommerce industry. In case you are unfamiliar with this term, cart abandonment is what happens when a shopper gets the end of the sales cycle and bails at the last moment. There are plenty of reasons this can happen. Maybe your shipping costs are higher than the shopper anticipated. Maybe the user just got distracted and hopes to come back later. Or perhaps there are simply too many things happening in your checkout process and they’re thwarting your sales.

Put Important Stuff Up Top

A well-organized ecommerce website anticipates customers’ needs. This is actually pretty easy to accomplish, once you think about it. All you have to do is see your website from your shoppers’ point of view. What are the common questions one might ask when they arrive at your homepage? They might want to learn more about your brand; or maybe they want to find your contact information. Important features such as your “About Us”, FAQ and contact pages should be findable via the top banner. A customer should never have to take more than a few seconds to find these essentials.

Then again, your shoppers might want to peruse your merchandise without delay. Include product categories that make sense for your industry.

Organize Your Shop

There are innumerable ways to categorize your merchandise. If you are selling clothing you could split things up by gender, age group, tops and bottoms, color, etc. But what do your customers want? What strategy best matches their expectations?

If you aren’t entirely sure, try asking them. A short questionnaire via email or following checkout is a quick way to get feedback on your site. You can also peek in on your competitors to see how they’ve organized their sites. Certain trends might pop out at you. It never hurts to gather intel on your rivals.

Compress Your Images

If you are a savvy ecommerce vendor, you know big beautiful images are key to selling your merchandise. Consumers love high-definition photos of models using and enjoying your products; product images from multiple angles; and seeing the product in multiple colors.

Unfortunately, the more images you add, the longer it can take your website to load. Meanwhile, slow load times drive customers away. So, what’s a vendor to do?

Before you start deleting photographs, take a moment to learn how to compress your images for faster load times. This simple tip will ensure quicker page loading, while retaining the quality of your images. Some site builders even include this functionality. If you are shopping around for a new site builder, start by leveraging an enterprise ecommerce solutions comparison to see if this innovation is included.

Restart Your Sales Cycle

Last but not least, you’ll want to find a way to put shoppers back into the sales cycle. This can be done in a few ways. The first is to include a social media button on every page of your website in a highly visible location. Urge your customers to follow you to catch up on the latest products releases and sales. Similarly, you should encourage them to sign up for your email subscription list to enjoy exclusive coupons and discounts.

These voluntarily marketing schemes are easy to employ because shoppers want to hear from your brand. It’s a low-pressure way to follow up with your buyers in hopes of turning them into lifelong customers.

These are just a few of the basics. But whether you’ve been in the game for five-plus years or just a few months, these tips should aid you in your efforts toward establishing a functional ecommerce site.