Singapore-based PE fund Emerging Markets Investment Advisers led this Series B round in Myanmar-based reality-tech startup ShweProperty

ShweProperty.com, one of Myanmar’s leading property portals, has secured US$3 million in its Series B round of funding. led by Singapore-based private equity fund Emerging Markets Investment Advisers (EMIA).

Other participants in the round include 500 Startups; Simon Baker, former Chairman of iProperty and Mitula Group; family office of Dinh Thi Hoa, Chairwoman of Galaxy Media & Entertainment Vietnam; and existing investor Stockholm-based Vostok New Ventures and a UK-based investment fund.

This is US-based 500 Startups’s maiden investment in Myanmar.

“The latest round of funding will be used to accelerate all areas of our business operations, sales and marketing, product development, and includes our advanced transaction model that streamlines the home buying process for consumers,” said Kevin Goos, MD of Shwe Property.

This is ShweProperty’s third round of funding. In 2017, it secured an undisclosed investment from Gilles Blanchard, Co-founder of French property site Seloger.com. This was preceded by a Series A round in February the same year.

Also Read: How the son of a humble watch repairer became the owner of a multi-million dollar realty tech startup

ShweProperty was started by Justin Sway (CEO), who was born in Myanmar before his family migrated to Australia when he was four years old. With over 20 years of business experience under his belt, he started the portal in 2011. It was a bold move back then because internet was still unavailable in the country since the market was not opened up. A mobile SIM card cost over US$500 in those years, making it unaffordable for the common man.

Currently led by Goos, Sway, and Kaung Thu Win (Founder and Director), ShweProperty connects property buyers, renters, and sellers. The company claims it has over 100,000 active listings and 750,000 monthly visits. It claims ShweProperty is working with all top property developers and real estate agents across the nation. At the moment, it has 1,200 registered agents and 500 developers, Sway told e27.

ShweProperty is pitted against iMyanmarHouse.com, which was started by Nay Min Thu in late 2013. In an interview with e27 last October, Thu said that it had over 550 developer partners, 2,200 agents, and 300,000 property listings from across the country. During its journey, iMyanmarHouse has also raised multi-million dollars in funding from Frontier Digital Ventures, an ASX-listed VC firm.

Commenting on the new funding, Trent Eddy, Chief Investment Officer for EMIA, said: “We were impressed by one of the strongest management teams in IT technology we’ve seen, and their great strength in online real estate portals is reflected in their market leadership and high-quality shareholder base.”

Besides ShweProperty, Sway is also co-founder of Myanmar-based jobs portal JobNet, which raised an undisclosed 7-figure funding in a Series A round in 2017.

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Image Credit: ShweProperty

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Yangon Capital Partners (YCP), Seed Myanmar, and Nest Tech come back as investors for Flexible Pass’s second funding round

Flexible Pass, Myanmar-based health and fitness app, announces that it has raised a six-digit Pre-Series A funding.

Without revealing the total funding raised, the second funding round was raised from three existing investors from the company’s first funding round: Yangon Capital Partners (YCP), Seed Myanmar, and Nest Tech.

The company said that it will use the funding to expand into the wellness industry by offering services such as spa and beauty services.

It will also develop a new subscription-based B2B product for businesses in the beauty and wellness industry that will be launched by the end of this year.

Flexible Pass currently operates in Yangon, Mandalay, and Pyin Oo Lwin after expanding in March 2019. It claimed to have over 1,000 monthly active users making over 2,500 bookings per month.

Also Read: How recovery training managed to become tech’s latest fitness craze

Through its mobile app, users can create an account, buy Flexible Pass points using a variety of payment options, and start making bookings.

Founded in March 2017 by its Founder and CEO Sully Bholat, Flexible Pass is a pay-as-you-go fitness pass that users can use to make bookings for 20 different fitness activities at over 150 locations across three cities of Myanmar.

Bholat admitted that he “derived” inspiration for the business from US-based fitness class subscription platform ClassPass in the US. When he saw a similar platform, GuavaPass, emerge in Asia, he started work on bringing his own version of it to Myanmar.

Also Read: Burmese fitness platform Flexible Pass has secured funding from Nest Tech

Flexible Pass is a graduate from Founder Institute, the idea-stage accelerator and startup launch programme run through Phandeeyar in Myanmar.

Flexible Pass is also a winner of 2017 Startup of the Year for Myanmar and Best HealthTech Startup of the Year for two years in a row in 2017 and 2018 for Myanmar, all in the ASEAN Rice Bowl Startup Awards.

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Image Credit: unsplash.com/@victorfreitas

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Hungry Hub offers a fixed-price dining service through its app, focussing on a la carte eateries

Thailand-based buffet app Hungry Hub announces that it has raised US$450,000 in funding from Expara and 500 Startups.

With a fixed-price dining app concept, the app’s offering includes exclusive buffet deals and sharing set-menus at restaurants with average per-booking spends of US$80.

This is the first funding that Hungry Hub has received after a period of bootstrapping, claiming to be profitable for the last eight months.

The company said that the seed funding will be used to speed up on the restaurant acquisition process to 1,000 restaurants in an 18 months goal.

In the next 12 months, Hungry Hub is planning to raise a Series A round and to reach international cities as part of the expansion plan.

Also Read: Foodtech in Singapore through the eyes of startups

Hungry Hubs offers mostly deals and set-menus such as All You Can Eat exclusive buffet promotions for restaurants that usually only offer a la carte menus; Party Pack, an exclusive set menus for groups of two to four diners with a minimum of 20 per cent discounts on eateries that do not usually offer discounts; and Buffet Plus, a menu option for Hungry Hub-customers-only that are offered on top of existing buffet promotions. It just added Hungry Lunch, a weekday all-inclusive set lunch options.

“Hungry Hub wants to allow diners to be able to know upfront before entering any restaurant as to how much their food bill is going to come to and for restaurants to drive more revenue through sustainable promotions,” said Hungry Hub Founder & CEO Surasit Sachdev.

According to Sachdev, there has been an untapped potential of group bookings, whether for celebrations or corporate dinners, with budgets that can be controlled whilst ensuring the location, cuisine, and atmosphere are right.

“Customer engagement in food service needs to go beyond the marketing function. Customers are more and more demanding as they have more choices,” Sachdev added.

Also Read: Meet the 100+ startups proving that Asia has the best startup ecosystem in the world

Established in 2014, Hungry Hub first served as an online restaurant reservation app. However, in 2016, the startup pivoted and redefined itself into a fixed-price dining offer app.

“Whereas competitors are focused on discounts, Hungry Hub helps the restaurant to up-sell and increase revenues while also giving them exposure to a large pool of customers, who directly fits their target market with the ability and willingness to pay,” said Anix Lynch from Expara in regards to the decision to invest in the company.

Currently operating in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Hungry Hub is looking to expand to major cities in Thailand and planning a regional rollout in 2020. The company claimed to have seated more than 430,000 diners to date.

Hungry Hub is the first winner in the Pitch Corner event of The Seedstars World Summit 2018 in Switzerland.

It was also named the top startup in The Pitch competition for the e-commerce category at the Echelon Asia Summit 2018 in Singapore.

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Key things learnt in wework that makes it work

There is a rising trend of coworking space in Singapore- you could easily find a coworking space in less than 200m apart in Singapore Central Business District, almost like how you would find bubble tea shops in shopping malls. 

Having been working in a coworking space, these are key things I learnt about the phenomenon of WeWork: 

People like flexibility or shorter-term commitment

Office lease term for coworking space is typically a month onwards, as compared to the convention office space whose office lease term is at least 2-3 years. The flexibility in office lease term provides an advantage for companies who need time to stabilise their headcount or to gain a market foothold before getting their own permanent office space. 

Also Read: How coworking is reshaping the workforce

This radical change in office leasing terms is the game-changer for coworking space to strive, at least for startups and growing companies who appreciate the flexibility and prioritise on cashflow.

People like clarity in cost

Nobody likes unpleasant surprises in their bill. There is cost pertaining to office fit-out, office utility and maintenance, should you get your own office space.

Coworking will continue its appeal because of its monthly subscription model. Simple and predictable unless you exceed the allocated credits for meeting room booking or printing.

People like transparency in the process

There is a relative lack of transparency in commercial real estate as compared to coworking space, where pricing is published based on headcount.

Based on my experience, all listed prices, be it on conventional office space or coworking space, are subject to negotiation.

If your requirement is large, you certainly have more negotiation power to bring the terms closer to your favour.

In any case, you need someone professional with local market knowledge to do proper market benchmarking based on your unique set of requirements.

Also Read: The benefits of coworking based on business size

People like instant gratification

The process to move into an office space is faster and more straightforward for the well-furnished and equipped coworking space, as compared to conventional office space, which could likely be in bare or partially fitted condition.

In a coworking shared space, there is a limited way for you to establish your unique corporate identity or showcase your values.

But for convenience sake, coworking space is still preferred and one may simply choose a coworking operator which could resonate closest to their corporate identity.

Also Read: 5 ways coworking can give your business a much-needed boost

Are you in the midst of finding office space? With the various options on a coworking and conventional office space, do you know which ones cost less and works out better for you? Do share your experience in setting your office space below.

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Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

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In addition to Flat Monthly and Tumblr, we also have updates from Zhihu and Faircent

Singapore’s Flat Monthly raises US$320,000 – Tech In Asia

Singapore-based online property rental platform Flat Monthly has raised US$320,000 in seed funding from Hong Kong’s Terra Capital, Tech In Asia reported.

Flat Monthly operates an online marketplace for landlords, agents, and tenants for condominiums and apartments.

It offers virtual reality tours of its listings, digital signing, and online rental payment services.

Terra Capital stated that investment into the startup will be used to produce immersive content.

Verizon to sell Tumblr to WordPress’s parent company – The WSJ

Verizon Communications Inc. has secured an agreement to sell its blogging site Tumblr to Automattic, owner of popular publishing tool WordPress, The WSJ reported.

Once purchased by Verizon for US$1.1 billion, Automattic will buy Tumblr for an undisclosed sum and take on about 200 of its employees.

Another report by Axios stated that Tumblr was bought for only less than US$10 million.

Also Read: We aim to transform car ownership through our 360-degree approach: Carro Founder Aaron Tan

Chinese Q&A platform Zhihu raises US$434 million – TechCrunch

Chinese Q&A platform Zhihu has raised a US$434 million Series F funding round, TechCrunch wrote.

The funding round was led by video and live-streaming platform Beijing Kuaishou, with participation from Baidu.

Existing investors Tencent and CapitalToday also returned for the round.

Zhihu plans to use the funding to support tech and product development.

In addition to being the company’s biggest funding round since it launched in 2011, it is also one of the largest secured over the past two years by a Chinese internet culture and entertainment company, according to Zhihu’s financial advisor for the funding round, China Renaissance.

India’s Faircent raises funding led by Das Capital & Gunosy Capital – Press Release

Indian P2P lending company Faircent has raised an undisclosed funding round led by Singapore-based Das Capital and Gunosy Capital.

The funding round also saw the participation of existing investors Starharbor Asia Pte Ltd and M&S Partners Pte Ltd (Sin Growth Partner Pte Ltd).

Faircent will utilise the funding to strengthen the platform’s technology, expanding distribution, and adding unique loan offerings for its lenders.

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Image Credit: Andrea Ang on Unsplash

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In April, Koku raised US$2 million led by Decent Capital, an investment firm started by Jason Zeng, who had co-founded Tencent

Koku, a Singapore-based fintech startup which provides foreign exchange tech solutions to non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFIs), has announced its plans to expand into Indonesia.

The expansion follows Koku’s US$2 million pre-series A fund-raise earlier this year, which was led by Decent Capital, an investment firm started by Jason Zeng, who had co-founded Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings.

The startup aims to partner with NBFIs including non-bank remittance companies and liquidity providers in Indonesia to provide cheaper, quicker and digital-first remittance services to their customers.

Koku views Indonesia as an increasingly promising market with a high migrant population and increasing inbound and outbound remittance. Through technology, there is immense potential for Indonesia to grow its remittance industry as well as contribute to the growth of the region’s e-payments and money transfer capabilities.

According to the World Bank, Indonesia’s economy has experienced tremendous improvements and growth, partly due to the contributions of its remittance industry. Examples of this growth include double-digit growth of 24.7 per cent in 2018, and a recorded transaction value of US$8.9 billion of foreign exchange by migrant workers in 2017. Indonesia is also considered as one of the top ten largest remittance recipients in Asia in 2018, per the Asian Development Bank’s estimates.

Also Read: QR code-based mobile payments startup QFPay raises US$20M for global expansion

“Indonesia is uniquely fragmented, and for us this presents great opportunity to contribute to the growth of the country’s financial capability as well as the region’s. We offer technology that doesn’t silo growth, but enables our partners to grow to their strengths, whilst at the same time leaving room to collaborate and tap on the strength of others. Koku envisions greater growth opportunities for the industry by leveraging technology to deliver financial inclusion and change the way of life for Indonesians,” said Calvin Goh, Founder and CEO of Koku.

As part of its strategic plans to expand into Indonesia, Koku will move to collaborate with partners, including e-wallet players, micro-lending and payment companies, remittance and money exchange businesses. These partnerships will be centred around the integration of its technology into existing operations.

In addition, Koku is potentially exploring opportunities to partner with local supermarkets and convenience stores, which will act as points of access to financial services, which will help the unbanked community move closers to financial inclusion.

“We’re extremely strategic in the way we approach our growth. Expansion into Indonesia will be very much dependent on engaging with the right partners. We want to ensure that our technology is localised to adhere to cultural needs and business needs,” Goh added.

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A major shift in the way we share and consume educational content

Be it instant streaming of movies, online home delivery of food or car rental services, the on-demand economy is expanding at a very fast pace covering all sectors of business. So, why should the education sector be left behind?

Further, the education industry is one of fast-growing industries across the globe. Hence, any innovation in the education sector can mark a significant change across lives. Let’s understand the buzz called on-demand economy and how can it disrupt the education sector.

A target of the on-demand economy

At first sight, the education sector is all about learning and teaching. Also, it has been one of the oldest professions in the whole world. However, it faces many challenges that include the increasing number of students in classes, different learning requirements of each student, difficulties in finding reliable tutors and high educational costs.

Traditional methods of teaching weren’t effective and that is how the on-demand economy took over the education sector. Most of the things have gone online.

According to Stratistics MRC, the Global E-Learning Market accounted for $165.21 billion in 2015 and is expected to reach $275.10 billion by 2022 growing at a CAGR of 7.5% during the forecast period.

How the education sector got disrupted

With technology, the style of imparting learning and consuming educational content has seen a major shift. The factors contributed to this paradigm shift are:

• Online repository of e-books, tutorials and videos
• Innovative learning models
• Virtual assistants
• Enhanced teacher-parent communication
• Bridging communication gaps between educational institutions, students and parents

With an endless number of online courses, private online tutors, e-books, book rental services, virtual classrooms, the list of the various ways in which the on-demand economy has disrupted the education sector goes on and on.

Let us have a look!

1. Marketplace for tutors and students

Educational websites and mobile apps with interactive e-learning technology and innovative games related to various subjects create a sense of enthusiasm in students.

Quality educational apps offers premium benefits like:

It connects students as well as tutors on any desired subject or topic as per their needs with one-to-one sessions. Virtual classrooms and video lessons make learning convenient for students. Some well-known educational websites and apps are Byju’s learning app, tutor.com, Embibe, Vedantu etc.

2. Better communication and transparency between students, tutors, and parents

Especially in school education, frequent teachers’ parents meeting regarding students’ progress and learning are important. However, with growing number of students and growing number of working parents, educational institutions find it challenging to arrange these meetings on timely basis.

Parents need to know more than just how their child is going ahead with their schooling, but each student also needs to know his or her own  progress. This can be done with regular tests, assessments and observations.

On-demand educational mobile apps enable teachers and students to stay connected 24×7. They can share their doubts and feedbacks at any time. The timely feedback of assessments is an efficient way of clearing doubts, which can enhances communication lines between the tutors and students. From online portals, students can even download tutorials as per their convenience. The transparency is also increased as scorecards can be viewed easily and discussed.

Also read: How artificial intelligence is disrupting education

3. Online book rental services and bookstores

Companies like the Amazon and Flipkart have made the availability of books and e-books more convenient. Sale of new as well as old books with CDs, DVDs or pendrive courses has benefited students. Besides, book rental services provided by thriftbooks.com have contributed to the online collection of educational resources.

4. Freelancing and online employment opportunities

Gone are those days when you had to go for walk-in interviews to get a job as a tutor or professor. Instead of getting fixed into 9 to 5 jobs, the on-demand economy has made it possible to work as per convenience. Hence, freelancing and online tutoring have become a hot option for many people. Anyone with the required skills and mastery over their subjects can teach online and upload video lectures on YouTube, Udemy or Coursera. The on-demand economy has actually created a lot of employment opportunities in education sector.

5. Cheap online courses and free certification

The innumerable number of cheap on-demand Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) with free certifications have not only attracted students but also working professionals, and anyone who wants to gain knowledge. The secure payment methods by CCAvenue, PayPal etc. make transactions easy to deal with. Everything is on click now, we just need to get started with it.

Wrapping up

The on-demand economy has revolutionised the education sector. If you are skeptical, I will suggest you go and register yourself for some online educational / professional course today and reap their benefits sitting in your home on your couch.

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This article was first published on e27, on September 19, 2018.

e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.

Photo by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash

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SEO tools for marketers that are becoming a key factor in improving search ranking

Without search engine optimisation, it becomes tough for any business to survive the competition in this age of cutthroat competition.

With the increase in internet traffic promoting brands and products through SEO 2019 will be a significant tool to stay on the top of the search engine list

One can get many tools, but not all are as good as they are claimed and listed below are some of the best SEO tools India that needs to be used by bloggers in 2019.

Google keyword planner

To use this keyword, one needs to create a Google Adwords account.

After creating the account type the keyword that you need and the Google Keyword Planner will pop up a list which is based on relevance or a prediction of the average searches per month, level of competition and the top page bid.

Also Read: How To Win at Google: A Crash Course on SEO

It will help a blogger or a marketer have an overall idea and use the perfect keywords to stay in the race.

One can specify the location, add filters, and even date ranges to get the latest trends in keywords for a particular segment.

SEMrush

 

With SEMrush by your side, that will research the perfect keyword for you and promote you, the tensions of being noticed are over.

Internet marketers trust it throughout the world. One can track the errors or create the report on their own.

You can get the backlinks, ideas, latest trends, and position tracking and even compare domain against a domain. You can monitor your brand, get organic traffic insights and know the keyword difficulty level. One can avail the monthly or the annual plan and subscribe accordingly.

 

Unamo 

With Unamo you will not only be able to do your SEO but can also monitor social media as well as optimise conversation rates.

One can split the multiple engines across different domains to get better control over the users. You will be positioned better and be able to set up numerous campaigns through a single area and monitor different pages.

You will even be able to get the mobile rankings and be able to view the results of the keywords one is monitoring while using or thinking to use.

 

Ninja outreach

If you are a blogger or digital marketer, you need to build the link or generate leads to stay on the top of the list.

You can do this with automated emails the schedule of which can be fixed, manage your significant campaigns and market influencers through the built-in CRM and many more.

You can avail all the social media influencers as well as scalable outreach tools through this software. The pricing varies on the number of services you want to take.

 

Google mobile-friendly test

 

With this, you can easily make out how best is your website for the mobile and take the corrective measures.

With more and more internet traffic building up through mobile phones as they have gone smart, it is time for you to go smart to stay on the top of the list.

It has become one of the vital SEO tools for marketers to check the content errors like the width, text sizes, viewport plug-in supports and many more critical issues to make the website mobile friendly and get the most traffic.

Also Read: How to best optimise SEO practices

Google webmaster console

If you want to be noticed in the considerable web-world, then this tool is going to be a big hit and become the best SEO tools.

It helps to give you information about your site or application, track the site performances in the search results and suggest and fix errors to increase the visibility while one is searching with a particular keyword. With Google by your side, you get alerted as soon as any error is observed so that you can fix it without delay.

GTMetrix

Speed is going to be more challenging for all businesses, and many bloggers and marketers have already started preparing for that.

GTmterix is going to be the best SEO 2019 application and software that enables to increase the page speed, gives the page load details like the time, number of visits or the size and other analysis and provides a real-time page analysis.

You can even analyze your page through a mobile phone. There are basic versions as well as many paid plans, and one can choose according to the need.

Woo Rank

More and more bloggers and marketers are using this SEO tool to analyze their website, and it has become one of the most popular instant checker as well as an SEO audit tool.

The users are getting the keyword tools through which monitoring can be done by keyword tracking, getting information on volume and ranking and keyword competitors.
Overview.

The above is the list of 8 best SEO tools bloggers and marketers are already using, which are most likely to be high in demand in the year 2019.

Also Read: How to avoid SEO disasters

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The modern workforce is more creatively-focused than ever and will allow professionals to boost imagination directly from those around.

The modern workforce has undergone some rather tumultuous changes over the past decade; the ever-increasing digitization of the economy and continued globalization has drastically reshaped how many people all around the world make a living.

One of the most notable trends in the past few years is a renewed surge in co-working or the use of a shared workplace that enables independent individuals to collaborate freely with one another as they go about their private business or work for different companies.

The enduring vibrancy of the gig economy all but ensures that co-working arrangements won’t be going away anytime soon. Here’s how we can expect coworking to reshape the workforce in the immediate future as it continues to grow in popularity across the nation.

Say hello to the office of the future

When most people think about the future of the modern office, they often imagine smart buildings that are defined by the interconnectivity of their digital devices.

This is only natural, as we’re regularly inundated with news articles, blog posts, and pundit musings regarding “smart cities” and the IoT.

Also Read: Filling the blank space: Notable coworking space trends in Indonesia in 2017

The real future of the office could be determined by the growing trend of co-working, however, which is less about the infrastructure of the building itself and more about establishing a collaborative environment where diverse professionals can mingle with and bounce ideas off one another.

Coworking began in San Francisco, but it’s since then rapidly spread around the world, particularly when it comes to well-developed areas that need creative, well-educated intellectuals in order to remain productive.

This should come as little surprise, as those professionals most well-suited to co-working arrangements are usually those with open minds and a willingness to embrace peculiar new perspectives with the hope that they’ll deliver useful new insights.

The huge number of co-working locations around the world today attest to the fact that this professional arrangement is only going to become more common as time goes on.

But why are so many professionals eagerly embracing co-working?

After all, open-office plans that force workers to sit with one another and receive various stimuli from a multitude of sources are slowly but surely becoming a thing of the past.

The real reason that co-working is taking off is that it enables gig economy workers and creative professionals to combine the best of their talents while drastically cutting down on the costs associated with running a place of business.

Startups and freelancers are lapping it up

One of the reasons we can be so confident that co-working will endure as an employment model is that freelancers and startup companies are eagerly embracing co-working arrangements which enable them to keep their initial costs under control.

The gig economy has been rapidly expanding in recent years, with at least 60 million people currently falling under its purview, and these non-traditional workers can’t operate within a traditional workspace if they want to succeed.

By tapping into the creative gusto and technological insights of their co-workers, modern freelancers and even some rogue corporate professionals are discovering that co-working arrangements are simply more productive than their more-traditional counterparts.

It would nevertheless be insufficient to argue that co-working arrangement is taking off solely because they’re an excellent fit for the gig economy.

As a matter of fact, one of the reasons that co-working will indisputably remain a major facet of the economy is because even larger businesses are beginning to embrace the idea of housing their hard-working employees in suitable, shared spaces that are co-inhabited by workers from other companies.

It’s easy to see why companies of yester-year may have been hesitant to embrace such an arrangement.

Also Read: Coworking space: why it’s the most startup thing ever

After all, a co-working setup could jeopardize the security of their intellectual property or lead to their less-well-compensated employees leaving for greener pastures.

In the modern era, however, where collaboration is king and the free exchange of information is crucial for the ongoing vibrancy of the economy, co-working arrangements have evolved into a highly desirable tool that large companies can use to innovate and cut costs.

An analysis of what co-working spaces will look like come 2020, for instance, persuasively argues that national players are slowly but surely making their way into the middle market of the country, and thus are highly likely to embrace co-working arrangements.

There’s a focus on innovation and creativity

The final reason that co-working is set to define the future economy is that it’s virtually unmatched when it comes to bolstering innovative and creative potentials of those workers who rely on co-working arrangements.

For as long as humans have been working, we’ve been trying to arrange more productive work arrangements that enable us to achieve more by doing less.

These days, coworking is the latest step in the long line of workplace revolution which has consistently enabled us to tap into one another’s creative energies.

Sometimes, this even means benefiting from the advice of your competitors!

Furthermore, the low-cost setup of most co-working arrangements will continue to make them alluring for corporations trying to venture into new markets across the country.

All in all, the future looks very bright wherever co-working is concerned.

Also Read: 9 Coworking spaces you can head to when in Manila

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Marketing activities require a huge investment and take a long time to show results if they are not automated.

 

Marketing automation is more than scheduling your social media posts. As a CMO, you should be aware of these 5 benefits.

The realms of marketing have changed by leaps and bounds in the last few years.

With companies adopting digital transformation, automation is making waves in the business ecosystem. Marketing automation increases productivity, the reach of the business and increases conversions.

CMO’s are spending large sums of their marketing budget in adopting marketing automation because it saves them time, effort as well as reduces the need for human involvement.

In simpler terms, marketing automation is a technology that manages marketing processes and campaigns across multiple channels automatically.

Also Read: Best B2B marketing KPIs that directly impact sales growth

A business can use this technology to target and reengage with customers through social media, email, text and web.

They can either be built from scratch, or you can customise an existing platform. Repetitive tasks are tackled by marketing automation to reduce human error and to free up the time of your resources to solve high-priority issues.

Marketing automation helps in lead generation, nurturing them, in online marketing, to streamline sales activities and to measure the ROI of marketing campaigns.

Take a look at these statistics that reflect the power of automation.

According to the latest reports, marketing automation drives up to a 14.5 per cent increase in the productivity of sales and 12.2 per cent reduction in marketing overhead.

80 per cent of marketing automation users observed an increase in the number of leads by using marketing automation software, and 77 per cent saw higher conversions. 91 per cent of professionals who use marketing automation believes it to be “essential” for the success of their online marketing activities.

With the statistics already elucidating the potential of marketing automation, let’s shed some light on the advantages of marketing automation

Automation enables the creation of personalised and timely content

Customers prefer a personalised experience by brands. Automation is the best way to do that. Spray and pray marketing is no longer useful. Reach out to your customers at the right time with relevant content and videos personalised for them.

This includes sending emails and push notifications based on trigger actions such as cart abandonment and account creation. As compared to regular emails, triggered emails have a 2x higher open rate and a 3x higher click-through rate. This increases the chances of conversions.

Consider an example: Amazon sends out product recommendation emails based on the previous purchases of the individual subscriber.

Marketing automation workflows are effective to reengage with customers who haven’t engaged with your brand recently or haven’t made a repeat purchase from your brand.

Automation saves time

By automating social media posts and social network advertising, you can save more than 6 hours a week. Moreover, you can increase the response rate to emails by 250 per cent.

Automation tools help you save up to 80 per cent of the time needed to fix an appointment with clients.

Imagine the luxury of not having to send emails or post on the different social media channels one by one. Automation allows you to plan it all well in advance and focus on your business strategy to yield better ROI.

Automation streamlines your retargeting campaigns

With the help of automation tools, you can impart a consistent experience to your target audience in line with their actions.

Let’s assume you have a new subscriber on your website. You can set up an automation workflow that will automatically send a welcome email introducing your brand along with an incentive for the first-time user.

You can then send out drip email campaigns to nurture the prospect and also employ retargeting on social media channels like Facebook.

Keep your brand on the top of the prospect’s mind and increase the likelihood of conversion. However, ensure that the advertisements do not get creepy and annoying for the reader.

AI and automation: a match made in heaven

 

Automation leverages artificial intelligence to predict the best time to send a brand message so that it receives maximum visibility over digital and social media channels.

A report from Vanson Bourne found that 80 per cent of businesses use AI in some form and automation is the most common application of this technology.

AI-powered canned responses are a part of a lot of brands’ customer support arsenal. While human empathy is irreplaceable, conversational chatbots assist in answering the frequently asked questions.

For customer support, in the same live chat, you can even include video messages to answer the FAQs for a greater level of personalisation.

You can either place the chatbot on your website or facebook messenger.

The key to balancing AI in customer service is to let the customer representative take over when the bot misses the context of the conversation.

Automation makes you smart

Identify the repetitive tasks and automate them using tools. Although this saves your time in the long run, it doesn’t mean that you will have to do less work. Nor can a CMO or the team afford to lose their focus on innovation.

Your team still needs to create and curate content consistently. You can automate scheduling your social media posts using Zoho Social. Automation allows your team to make data-driven decisions to optimise your efforts strategically.

Collecting data is not tough anymore. The difficulty lies in using this data to create engaging and personalised experiences that customers crave for.

Also Read: 5 content marketing trends you need to heed

Here’s what you can automate in your marketing strategy to drive engagement.

Social media marketing

Building a social media presence for a global audience can get time-consuming.

Let’s assume you are based in India, but most of your clients are in the US. It is strongly recommended that you schedule your social media posts in their time zone for better visibility.

Tools such as Crello help you create images for social media. Hootsuite and Buffer can help you schedule and automate your social media posts. Businesses who have their prospective customers in a different time zone can mainly make the most of such tools.

Capture data about people engaging with your brand on social media. The metrics include demographic information, the kind of content the followers’ download, how often your posts are clicked, liked and shared, and what type of content they are interested in. These help you create and share targeted content to supercharge the engagement.

Email marketing

Email marketing is most effective when you send the right email at the right time to the right person. To follow this marketing trend, you ought to have different automation workflows that trigger emails as soon as the subscriber takes a particular action.

• Send a series of welcome emails to the new subscriber.
• Nurture the prospects with drip email campaigns.
• Send post-purchase email to the customers and ask for their feedback.
• Re-engage the inactive subscribers with a win-back email campaign.

You can send all these emails with the help of automation tools such as Drip and Zapier. They give you access to the performance of these email campaigns so that you can keep optimising for the best results.

Monitoring CRM with enhanced routing

With the help of an automation tool Azuqua, you can build custom processes for your business without the need for coding any complicated integrations. This platform can link CRM software like Salesforce to social media platforms.

It can also be used to keep track of the online mentions of the brand, thereby following up with the negative mentions instantly and resolving such issues.

Lead-flow processes

Generating leads and setting lead-flow processes can get quite time-consuming. It can take hours to download, format, and upload a single list.

Therefore, automation becomes an indispensable aspect of marketing. Tools like HubSpot and Marketo can assist you with this process. You can integrate these tools with a CRM and email platform and then focus on the crucial marketing activities.

Marketing analytics

It is incumbent upon every marketer to analyse the performance of marketing activities and the ROI. Automation gives you detailed information about marketing analytics from acquisition to conversion to closure. HubSpot’s Marketing Analytics gives you a clear insight into the entire marketing funnel and every interaction the prospect had with your brand.

Over to you…

 

Also Read: A guide to marketing apps effectively through affiliate marketing

Automation has provided an efficient, lucrative, and cost-effective method of maintaining lead generation processes with proper nurturing and scoring.

Have you implemented marketing automation to acquire new customers or amplify customer retention? How has it worked for you? Let us know in the comments below.

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Image Credit: Lukas Blazek

 

 

 

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