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Can fintech resolve the healthcare crisis?

‘Health is wealth’ but who has health without their wealth?

Technological innovations in the financial sector have brought about a global bloom in the industry.

In the past three years, the industry has managed to amass US$31 billion and remains promising.

Similarly, the healthcare industry is also looking to advance in technology to bring about innovations in its service.

In our current climate, it is obvious that the rich are getting richer and the poor are living paycheck to paycheck — finding it increasingly harder to pay off loans.

That is why fintech should aim to solve the unaffordable healthcare crisis.

The parallels between fintech and healthcare

The financial environment has changed significantly.

This is due to the increasing popularity of decentralized currencies, tech payment options, digital wallets offered by companies like Apple, Samsung, Google, and online reviews.

The traditional financial institutions like banks are now struggling to prove their ongoing value to the consumers and strive to provide high-quality services at a low price.

On the other hand, the healthcare industry has been reluctant to embrace such technology at a similar magnitude.

However, fintech has the ability to bring significant change in this sector and make healthcare more accessible and affordable for the masses.

Also Read: Cambodia catches up with launching of startup professional service alliance

It can help the patients as well as the medical staff in the following ways:

Data and performance tracking

The worldwide wearables market is increasing by 16.9 per cent every year. Around 310.4 million wearable devices are sold in a year, generating a revenue of US$30.5 billion.

This success is owed to the monitoring of personal health and wellness.

The relationship between tracking fitness and the larger health issues is undeniable and the success of such products has direct implications on the healthcare sector.

Access to information

Providing 24 hours of access to important information has been exclusive for financial institutions — until now.

But its importance cannot be denied in other sectors too, thus, fintech should be utilized to introduce this in healthcare as well.

Through blockchain applications, one can store data, improve functioning with the help of AI, and help individuals in accessing the data.

Removing confusions from billing systems

The payments and billing systems in the healthcare industry are full of trouble, so a change is not just desirable but necessary here.

Fintech startups should help in finding ways to facilitate payments by offering online billing and bill payments.

The interest of the masses is to create a retail kind of experience in healthcare and introduce blockchain for easier and facilitated transactions.

Personalized programs

As individuals have become more open about sharing their personal details and lifestyle choices, it’s possible to formulate personalized programs.

Also Read: How to give your small business a boost with budget advertising

Depending on your age and health condition, these programs can actually lead you to a healthier lifestyle and help in keeping the problem areas under control.

Conclusion

Healthcare should be innovating itself with time and must be working for the betterment of the individuals.

Serving the health-related needs of individuals should be prioritized by different industries and they must work together to ease up the healthcare processes.

Image Credits: jjvallee

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

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Go-Jek funding round aims for US$3 billion

The company is recruiting investment banks to act as advisers during its fundraising efforts

go_jek_funding

In a round that has already bagged US$1 billion, Go-Jek is reportedly driving towards US$3 billion, according to Bloomberg.

No final decision has been made on the total goal for the round, but the number reported sounds like the current internal target.

As part of the funding drive, the company is wooing investment banks to act as an adviser in the ongoing round.

The US$3 billion number is equal to the number rival Grab raised in 2018. Grab made its US$3 billion funding push fairly public towards the end of the year.

As Go-Jek has expanded into Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore, the ride-hailing industry has seen a flood of investments as the two companies battle for supremacy in Southeast Asia.

However, data suggests this town is big enough for the two of them. According to Bloomberg, the ride-hailing industry is expected to be worth US$28 billion in 2025. It was estimated at being worth US$7.7 billion in 2018.

Also Read: e27’s Daily Digest is that sprinkle of humanity in your email inbox

Go-Jek’s regional expansion has not been 100 per cent smooth sailing. Most important was the decision by the Philippines government to reject its application to operate in the country.

However, the acquisition of Coins.ph gives Go-Jek an alternative revenue stream (payments) in the Philippines.

In Singapore, the biggest moment was a viral video of a woman faking her own kidnapping, and subsequently being mocked by a large portion of the population.

Yesterday, the company announced it has hired Lien Choong Luen, a former executive at the National Research Foundation, to be its Singapore General Manager.

Vietnam may be the success story for Go-Jek’s foray into Grab territory. The company says it has nabbed 40 per cent of the two-wheel market in the country, according to the South China Morning Post.

Also Read: Bullied to succumb: Should tech companies bow to society’s homophobic demands?

At the current moment, Grab is still the dominant ride-hailing app outside of Indonesia, but US$3 billion could go a long way to evening the playing field.

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Blockchain-based information curation startup Band Protocol secures US$3M seed funding

The funding is led by Sequoia India and will be focussed toward product development

Thailand and Singapore-based startup Band Protocol announced today that it has raised US$3 million seed funding led by Sequoia India. Joining the round was Dunamu & Partners as well as SeaX.

Band Protocol describes itself as a startup that “harnesses wisdom-of-crowd and incentivises its digital community of users to curate reliable information”. With the funding, the company plans to further its product development and its go-to-market this year.

Also Read: Astrology-agnostic? Wait. Here’s a startup that can predict whether your startup will fail or not

The investment made by Sequoia India into Band Protocol also marked the global VC’s first blockchain investment in Southeast Asia.

The premise of Band Protocol is that it offers users an opportunity to create a token-curated community that’s specific on a topic or category. The users then will be able to issue personalised tokens as an incentive to encourage data and information curation within that community.

This way, the power is given back to active users and content creators as data owners.

“There’s growing unavailability of trustable data on the internet, coupled with the rising trend of fake news,” said Soravis Srinawakoon, co-founder and CEO of Band Protocol. “Our vision at Band Protocol is to bring online and digital communities together by creating an online platform for the curation of transparent and reliable data.”

With the company’s approach, Band Protocol can serve customers ranging from entities such as credit bureaus, fraud detection, KYC and identity verification – as well as any service or site that offers online discussion, recommendations, and rankings.

Band Protocol was founded in 2017 by Soravis Srinawakoon, Sorawit Suriyakarn, and Paul Chonpimai. All three founders have histories with investing in cryptocurrencies since 2013 and have created a crypto game in 2015 that is said to have garnered over 300,000 users.

Band Protocol’s believed to be able to solve the problem of lack of regulation that arises from issues like biased ranking, inaccurate reporting of token metrics, to scams that part retail investors from their money.

Also Read: Blockchain is paving the way for something new: Smart Companies

To promote the adoption of Band Protocol and demonstrate its application, the team is creating CoinHatcher, that serves as a decentralised portal that aggregates reliable news, research, token-economic information, and a comprehensive directory of crypto projects, founders, and other related ecosystem players for education and data accuracy in the sector.

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Personal finance startup DollarsAndSense buys insurtech fundMyLife

The acquisition aims to provide all-around financial advice for Singaporeans

DollarsAndSense.sg, a personal finance media startup based in Singapore, announced today that it has acquired fellow local financial planning startup fundMyLife.

By acquiring fundMyLife, DollarsAndSense will add insurtech platform to its media business. DollarsAndSense stated that it also seeks for better insights into what consumers are looking for, in terms of financial planning knowledge for Singaporeans and what’s still missing.

Also Read: Ofo operating license suspended in Singapore

During the transition, fundMyLife co-founders Jackie Tan and Wesley Goi will remain on board to aid a seamless transition.

fundMyLife was founded in 2017 to provide consumers with answers to financial planning or insurance question from a curated pool of trusted financial advisors via a private Q&A platform. The approach gave users a reliable source of knowledge, privacy, and choice to opt for follow-up financial consultation.

On the other hand, financial advisers who utilises the platform can access leads of potential customers and make their past accomplishments a portfolio alongside client testimonials. It also allows these advisers to value-add to prospects who have already shown an intent to make a financial planning decision, rather than offering those who are still in the stage of deciding the need of insurance.

DollarsAndSense.sg was founded in 2012 and has remained focussed on addressing personal finance through publication in Singapore. It supports Singaporeans in making better financial decisions through bite-sized articles, infographics, videos, and tools.

Prior to the acquisition, DollarsAndSense has been working closely with fundMyLife on areas like affiliate partnerships, content marketing, and improving engagement with the financial adviser community.

“I believe the acquisition of fundMyLife this will lead to better outcomes for both consumers and financial advisors. We are committed to make this platform a success for everyone involved,” said Timothy Ho, Co-founder and Managing Editor of DollarsAndSense.

Also Read: Oriente partners with Indonesia’s conglomerate Sinar Mas to launch lending platform

“DollarsAndSense brings their expertise in creating original content in the personal finance space, joined with strong branding and reach. I believe fundMyLife will achieve its growth potential in the coming months as a result of this partnership,” said Jackie Tan, Co-founder of fundMyLife.

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Ofo operating license suspended in Singapore

Ofo must remove all bikes from public spaces by March 13 or else risk having its operating license fully voided

Chinese bike-sharing startup Ofo has had its operating license pulled by the Singapore Land Transport Authority and all bikes must be removed from city streets by March 13, according to Channel News Asia.

Ofo runs the risk of having its license fully cancelled if it does not remove the bikes by the deadline.

It is possible Ofo may not be able to remove the bikes because two weeks ago the company fired all of its staff in Singapore, some of whom were let go over the phone. The LTA said it will remove the bikes on March 14 to prevent public clutter.

The LTA is suspending the license because it failed to comply with regulatory requirements in Singapore — specifically the proper implementation of their QR code system. This means the company was not following new rules that requires bikes to be parked within designated parking areas. Furthermore, Ofo did not reduce its fleet to below the 10,000 maximum requirement.

In mid-January, the LTA gave Ofo one month to comply with the regulations or risk suspension. The company missed the deadline.

Also Read: Bike-sharing startup Ofo terminates staffs over the phone without compensation

Ofo is struggling to stay afloat in China and the Singapore situation feels like a company that is fighting to survive domestically and thus is struggling to manage its international business interests.

Ofo is backed by Alibaba. Last December the CEO Dai Wai said his company is facing “immense cashflow problems”.

Also Read: Kick start your Echelon experience with Echelon Roadshow 2019 Singapore

Once awash in pay-per-use public bicycles, the bike-sharing bubble has popped in Singapore, highlighted by the disgraceful exit of oBike last July.

MoBike and the smaller SG Bike are the two companies left with operating licenses. MoBike appears to be benefiting from the upheaval in the Singapore market, having applied to grow its fleet in the next licensing cycle, according to The New Paper.

In China (the global bike-sharing headquarters), it looks as if MoBike has the inside track for what will be an important, disruptive and rocky year for the industry.

 

 

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Indonesia’s fintech DANAdidik.id becomes country’s first minister-approved student loan provider

Indonesia’s Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education has confirmed that it backs DANAdidik.id’s student loan service

DANAdidik.id, an education-focussed fintech from Indonesia, officially announces the support from the president of the country, Joko Widodo, through his Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education.

Also Read: Go-Jek funding round aims for US$3 billion

The ministry provides its support through the program called PPBT (Perusahaan Pemula Berbasis Teknologi) or translated as Tech-based Startup program. The program is designed to back startups with funding, mentorship, and other facilities.

The program is essentially an incubator by the ministry to encourage entrepreneurship.

“All DANAdidik team welcomes the ministry’s program and we hope that more people, hopeful students can access DANAdidik’s benefit, fulfilling our mission #SemuaBisaKuliah (translated as #EverybodyCanGotoCollege),” said Nurlaila, Head of Marketing.

The ministry’s program aims to have the trust of the government, investors, and students in the student loan industry while also making sure everyone can have fair access to education without worrying about tuition fee.

Also Read: These 7 startups will be early 5G adopters under the guidance of APTG Accelerator Programme

The support through the ministry reflects the President’s mission that seeks to build student loan industry in Indonesia, announced in April last year.

DANAdidik is leveraging on crowdfunding to connect sponsor with university students under its platform. Launched in 2015, the fintech gives long term loan for four years.

Photo by MD Duran on Unsplash

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3 trends that will drive Vietnam’s e-commerce sector in 2019

Online shopping games and digital payment are among some of the things Vietnam can expect


Last year, Vietnam’s e-commerce went through its most exciting year yet, starting with big funding news across the board and ending with Google and Temasek’s optimistic prediction of a 43 per cent growth from now till 2025.

This positive growth seems very likely to continue into 2019 along with that would be some interesting market movements.

Here are 3 things to expect from the Vietnamese e-commerce sector this year, according to experts from iPrice Group.

The rise of single-market merchants

According to iPrice’s data on the Vietnamese market, single-market merchants such as Tiki, Thegioididong, and Sendo.vn made several encouraging improvements in 2018 in terms of attracting both user traffic and investment.

The most impressive improvement belongs to Tiki.

Their monthly website traffic increased by a whopping 80 per cent within only six months, which took them from the fourth highest position among e-commerce websites in Vietnam to second place by December.

Similarly, Sendo.vn also grew by 55 per cent in monthly website traffic within a period of six months and maintained a healthy fifth place in Vietnam, one rank behind Thegioididong.

the most visited e-commerce platforms in Vietnam by Nov 2018

All three of these merchants also did well enough in 2018 to rank among the top 10 merchants with the highest monthly web traffic in Southeast Asia.

These positive results arrived soon after Tiki and Sendo.vn announced their success in raising new funding.

In particular, Tiki received US$44.04 million from JD.com in late 2017 while Sendo acquired US$51 million from various investors last August.

It seems that by focusing on one market and utilizing their knowledge on local shopping behaviour, single-market merchants like Tiki and Sendo.vn have a certain advantage over the multinational competitors Lazada and Shopee.

Now that they’re starting to gain access to better funding, Vietnamese single-market merchants might surprise everyone and win big in 2019.

Digital payment gaining popularity

Right in the first month of 2019, MoMo – one of the most popular digital wallets in Vietnam, announced that they had successfully closed their series C funding round.

Before that, in 2018, Moca – a local competitor, also started a partnership with GrabPay and expanded their digital payment services.

In a similar fashion, other online payment services like ZaloPay and ViettelPay have been showing signs of becoming more serious in their attempts to acquire users.

All these movements promise to make digital payment more popular with Vietnamese online shoppers.

According to Google and Temasek’s report, only 25 per cent of Vietnamese chose to use digital payment, while the rest still prefer CoD (Cash-on-delivery) for their only transactions.

Digital payment service adoption rate in SEA

While CoD helps ease the minds of customers, extra charges on CoD transactions for logistics are a problem for e-commerce merchants.

Moreover, CoD is also shown to increases the risk of product return.

Therefore, the increase in popularity of digital payment in Vietnam thanks to advocating efforts from service providers like MoMo, GrabPay, ZaloPay, etc. will bring a lot of benefits to the whole e-commerce sector in Vietnam in 2019.

Entertainment and engagement while shopping

After focusing on price-based promotion campaigns in previous years, e-commerce merchants in Vietnam have started to adopt some innovative strategies in their user acquisition efforts in 2018.

In particular, they began to provide customers with more entertainment values.

The most prominent follower of this trend must be Shopee.

For this year’s Singles Day, besides their usual promotions, Shopee also introduced several interactive games for their app users as well as a live TV show featuring some of the biggest Vietnamese pop stars, the first of its kind in Vietnam.

Shopee's live Singles Day TV Show in Vietnam

Shopee’s main competitors in Vietnam, Lazada and Tiki also created interactive games on their apps and websites.

As we can see from these programs, e-commerce merchants in Vietnam have finally realized that the most effective way for them to acquire users and keep them around is by engaging with them and making them feel more involved.

This trend will certainly become even more notable in the upcoming year.

Image Credits: amadeustx

Source: iPrice Insights

All data on the total visits on desktop and mobile web in this study were taken from global traffic figures from the respective regional sites. Insights based on SimilarWeb data.

iPrice Group is a meta-search website operating in seven countries across Southeast Asia namely in; Malaysia Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, and Hong Kong. Currently, iPrice compares and catalogs more than 500 million products and receives more than 15 million monthly visits across the region. iPrice currently operates three business lines: price comparison for electronics and health & beauty; product discovery for fashion and home & living; and coupons across all verticals.

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Blockchain is paving the way for something new: Smart Companies

Smart Companies are globally-connected and blockchain-compatible companies with their own legal identity

The focus of most companies in the blockchain space is to empower users and give them a level of autonomy that they can’t find in centralised systems (formal institutions such as banks, for example).

A key part of the move for empowerment is to reward users for their contributions within the blockchain system.

Every company has tried to implement a form of rewards system, and while these systems may differ, the goal is the same — to give users a reward that empowers them financially.

Credits given within the blockchain system hold monetary value – or a value that is essentially equivalent.

These rewards can be used within a particular blockchain-linked industry or they can be exchanged for money.

The idea is to give users a strong incentive to continue with blockchain technology.

There are a few obstacles, however, that need to be dealt with in order for users to fully benefit.

With the growing developments in the blockchain space, and with the decentralised nature of blockchain, it is important that businesses ensure that they are in compliance with Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML) regulations.

KYC is the process where a business verifies the identity of its clients and assesses potential risks of illegal intentions for the business relationship.

These are regulations that ensure that criminal activity is prevented, and transactions can occur securely and confidently.

In order for any financial institutions, regulated industries, merchants and/or service providers to run in any industry, they need to be in compliance with these regulations.

The same goes for many businesses in the blockchain space.

Companies are working their hardest to ensure that they follow these rules, but their implementation of these standards is very costly and has led to a major inconvenience for users, leading to a high drop-off rate in consumer onboarding.

In order for users of regulated blockchain applications to use a company’s services or purchase products, they typically will need to fulfil the KYC requirements.

For every application they make use of, they have to fill in the same details which very time consuming and cumbersome.

To deal with these gaps, one major field of interest among blockchain companies is identity verification, and this is one focus of platforms like Blockpass, which focuses on practical solutions in dealing with KYC.

A mobile approach to identity

The user-focused, user-controlled mobile identity application designed for smooth and immediate access to regulated services.

In its initial iteration, Blockpass is a KYC and AML application-as-a-service.

Its aim is to solve the current KYC problem that is present in the blockchain system and bring the blockchain industry into the mainstream with streamlined identity verification services.

Also read: Blockchain companies need to strengthen brand credibility for sake of ecosystem

Users can establish, verify, store and manage their identities while still maintaining full control over all personal data involved – something that plays well with current privacy regimes like the European GDPR and other regulations across Southeast Asia and beyond.

With an initial focus on human identity, such platforms provide a reliable and cost-effective KYC and AML services for regulated industries, merchants and service providers of all types. This means that the process of complying with these regulations will become easier for both users and companies.

Beyond transforming the way KYC and AML verification, a blockchain-based approach can also offer an opportunity for other companies to leverage the advantage of next-level technologies through API-based verification solutions.

It’s essentially a plug-and-play means to do KYC and verification without the need to build an entirely new solution from ground-up.

Mainstreaming the “Smart Company”

One concept being introduced into the mainstream is the idea of the “Smart Company”, which a startup called Korporatio is focusing on.

Simply put, Smart Companies are globally-connected and blockchain-compatible companies with their own legal identity.

Korporatio’s service creates legally recognised trading entities which can own assets and capital, and employ people – all through a blockchain approach.

Using smart contracts and blockchain technology, the platform is already changing the way that businesses start up and operate by removing the bureaucracy and red tape that often hampers progress.

The solution integrates with Blockpass’ KYC verification process, thus leading to a seamless and compliant user onboarding for new users.

With a tokenised approach, users also get benefits in the form of tokens as an incentive for signing up during a limited time.

Similar blockchain companies that are employing this KYC compliance solution include Infinito, GoSecurity and DSTOQ – all with focus on security, privacy, and ease of use.

Also read: Blockchain-based e-KYC platform claims the throne at Binar Academy and Tokopedia’s Hack of Thrones

The long-term goal: A seamless blockchain ecosystem

With all the new and different blockchain solutions being launched of late, the main goal is perhaps gearing toward a seamlessly functioning blockchain ecosystem that will allow more inclusiveness for users across the globe for individuals, businesses, or other organisations.

With secure verification, users will be able to participate in the ecosystem knowing that their information is secure, while being financially empowered at the same time.

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

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Social media hacks for improved customer acquisition

Make sure your customer service is on point!

With the advent of web-based advertising campaigns for internet companies, measuring customer acquisition metrics has become crucial for marketers everywhere.

Whether you are generating leads that bring actual revenue, or tracking consumer behaviour to improve the decision making process – analysing key parameters associated with customer acquisition can do wonders for your business

Understanding the customer acquisition cost (CAC) for your social media channels helps you assess your marketing spend, allocate a marketing budget, and determine the value proposition from conversion tracking. If you’re looking for effective ways to acquire customers online, try putting the following methods to test:

Superior social media customer service

Customers that have had an unsatisfactory experience with customer service are more inclined to take their business elsewhere. Therefore, investing in high-quality, solution-driven and attentive customer service is crucial for customer retention.

Responding to grievances and maintaining a direct line of communication with users also prevents negative publicity, especially in the digital age where word gets out fast and is never forgotten.

Once you are approached by a customer on any of your social media channels, acknowledge them, apologise for the inconvenience, and promise an estimated time-frame for resolution. Avoid being defensive and keep a professional tone even when you’re dealing with an impatient customer. Don’t try to shift the blame, and focus on escalating the issue as soon as possible.

As shown in the example below, the customer service of Victoria Bella Spa responds to its request on Facebook a customer seeking an appointment at the establishment.

Leverage the power Of LinkedIn

The majority of traffic on your platform consists of anonymous users, unless they’re specifically logging in, or identifying themselves in some form while browsing. Understanding user behaviour and creating buyer personas can be a game changer.

If you have at least the basic information about the person visiting your platform, and what they came looking for. With Leadfeeder, you can categorize your visitors according to their company’s IP addresses, by sifting through their browsing logs to get a valuable insight into what kind of websites, and portals each visitor is interested in.

What’s more? The app easily synchronises with your LinkedIn profile, to show you a list of closest connections at visiting companies, and also push all this data to your Customer Relation Management (CRM). Utilize the knowledge you obtain from Leadfeeder as a starting point for personalized, proactive engagement with new and existing customers.

Learn more about your customers

Nobody wants their identity to be reduced to a faceless individual, with an email address that invoices get sent to –  especially not the customers you do intend to do long-term business with. To understand the psyche of an average customer, you need to know more about them as a people.

This helps you identify their pain points, anticipate their needs, fill the gaps in your CRM strategy and offer customized solutions to their problems.For a quick example, connect Salesforce with Clearbit, a nifty profile enrichment tool that will scour through all possible data sources, including social media, to create a detailed profile of every customer.

Also Read: 3 trends that will drive Vietnam’s e-commerce sector in 2019

These insights can come in handy for your team for when they need personalized sales pitches that directly appeal to the customer’s interest.

Experiment With The Most Popular Promotional Tactics

Although persuasive copy and creative call-to-actions (CTA) are crucial for garnering potential customers,  you can always rely on a few tried and tested methods to promote your brand on various social media channels like LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Here are a few excellent ways that are known to work for any brand, product or service:-

Conduct engaging polls: Get instant engagement from asking people to vote on a relatively easy, but interesting questions.

Host a contest or giveaway: With an enormous virality potential, contests are a great way to attract new customers, engage with the existing ones, and increasing your post reach or followers. To get more attention to your contest, you can also create a separate tab on your page that either redirects to your website, or takes you to the contest page on Facebook itself.

For example, Eggo, a popular brand of frozen waffles in the United States, created a separate ‘Recipe Contest’ tab to their page, and featured the same under ‘Apps’.

Ask for customer input on upcoming features and services: A successful business takes  customer feedback into account while pushing out new updates, features, products and services.  Use your social media channels to improve your digital marketing strategy, by asking your customers directly about suggestions!

Lions Club International, a non-political service organization from Illinois posted a simple text update, encouraging users to making suggestions on improving club meetings.

Use hashtagsCreate a company hashtag and encourage your followers to use it. You can also capitalize on the trending hashtags in your posts to piggyback your way into ‘popular’ tweets.

KitKat created the #HaveAbreak hashtag for their campaign, urging users to take to time out from their day to enjoy a KitKat.

Also Read: Go-Jek funding round aims for US$3 billion

Post motivational images, quotes and videos: Emotionally connect with your users, by sharing an inspiring story or a few words of wisdom from the experts.

In the above example, a Facebook user puts up a motivational quote image to increase engagement.

Recognizing your most engaging users:Create a quick list of users that frequent your page more often than the others, and reward them with a small feature in a post, or grant them access to exclusive events, contests, promotions, and services.

ModCloth, an American online retailer for women’s clothing, explains what features their ‘superfans’ will get access to.

Employ paid marketing: With the new Facebook algorithm, organic reach seems to be on a decline, and you should consider investing in paid promotions on social media. Experiment with A/B split testing to determine what works the best with your target audience, and the performance of your ads.

In the above example , Jasper’s Market, an ultra-premium prepared food market uses a carousel-type Facebook ad to promote their products.

Post incentives, deals, and discounts:Nothing attracts potential customers more than a post about a well-timed sale, discount, deal, or incentive, containing appropriate call-to-action (CTA) and trackable links.

As shown above, Amazon announces a Bonus Deal with an appropriate call-to-action to drive traffic to their website.

Post more native videos:Most platforms are now giving preference to natively uploaded videos over other types of content, so hop on the video marketing trend. Familiarize yourself with the best practices, concepts, and formats to post interactive, engaging videos.

Let customers spread the word about your brand

Approximately 39 per cent of adults have admitted to posting on social media about their experience with a product, service or a brand.

Regardless of you tapping into these conversations, it’s undeniable that they’re happening and you are missing an opportunity to tap into an important emotional trigger.Use Mention to get notified every time your business is mentioned across the internet. Share customer testimonials and experiences, and let the word-of-mouth do the marketing for you.

The simple approach to keeping your customer acquisition is understanding that customer loyalty can always be improved upon by implementing an efficient CRM, marketing campaigns can be optimized to succeed by keeping tabs on what your audience responds to , and the user value can be enhanced by upgrading your product or service to make it more appealing to your customers.

Break out a spreadsheet and closely document your customer acquisition budget (pay-per-click), customer lifetime value, and direct sales generated from your efforts for each channel.

For a dramatic increase in revenue, you should aspire to a social media strategy that directly contribute to conversions by bringing in new customers, and produces interesting content to engage the existing users.

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Walking the walk: Three Asian crypto companies gaining real-world traction

Startups that launch products hurt the reputation of crypto, so it is important to point out the companies that are doing right by their investors</h3

Cryptocurrency has had a rollercoaster year and in hindsight we are starting to realise the hype may have been more than a little premature.

A study commissioned by Invest in Blockchain found that only 36 of the top 100 digital currencies by market capitalisation had a working product.

To look at it from an even scarier lens: 64 per cent of these projects are still knee-deep in product development – some of them may even have nothing more available to the public than a white paper and a community chat.

While the definition of what constitutes a working product is up for debate – the researchers used public availability, the release of a mainnet and consumer or enterprise usage as their criteria – there is no arguing that there is a serious issue afoot here.

These crypto projects are breaking a cardinal rule in the tech world: They’ve put marketing before product development, sometimes even to its exclusion.

Also Read: 3 trends that will drive Vietnam’s e-commerce sector in 2019

The focus on marketing would not be so problematic if the general public tended to compartmentalise crypto projects one-by-one, but they do not. A few bad actors will paint a pattern in their eyes: These initiatives are all hype, or even worse, they are all scams.

In short time, you might see a backlash against truly innovative cryptocurrencies or crypto companies, similar to how some skeptics doubted firms like Amazon or PayPal in the wake of the dot-com bubble.

The problem is rooted in the general public as much as it is in the crypto projects with no working product. Rather than celebrate any crypto project with a unique idea, we need to exercise greater discretion in choosing which initiatives, organizations, and firms to give our attention to.

We should focus on ventures that have a working product, as it’s their solutions that will improve the lives of users, and in the aggregate, build credibility and galvanize support for an industry in dire need of it.

Luckily, Asia Pacific is home to some of the most notable cryptocurrency companies with working products. Here are three of the very best, each working to cut through marketing speak with solutions that help enterprises or consumers.

QTUM

QTUM, based out of Singapore, was one of the few companies in Asia that made Invest in Blockchain’s list of working products. It is a smart contracts platform and value transfer protocol that takes elements from both Bitcoin and Ethereum. Though its price has fallen as of late, many enterprises and organizations are already building projects atop QTUM, in fields as diverse as health care, content creation, and online search.

Most impressively, some developers are using QTUM to build niche applications far from the usual technology subsectors. One example is Halal Chain.

Halal certification is the process of certifying food, medicine, and cosmetics as meeting certain standards established by the Islamic Council. Unfortunately, many companies try to game the system, as a bid to attract the Muslim market but cut costs on the actual work it takes to produce Halal goods.

Halal Chain will better regulate the Halal certification system by tracing the movement of goods at every stage of the chain – raw material supply, inspection and quarantine, and sales – through QTUM-enabled smart contracts. There are many other noteworthy projects being built through QTUM, which just goes to show its effectiveness as a platform: It is enabling others to succeed in ways they couldn’t before.

Pundi X

Pundi X was another company in Asia that met Invest in Blockchain’s criteria for a working product.

The term may even be an understatement for Pundi X, as the Indonesian company is in the midst of a global roll-out of their 100,000 Pundi XPOS devices, deploying so far in Singapore, Korea, Indonesia, Brazil, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and many other markets. These XPOS devices enable consumers to make in-store transactions using cryptocurrency via their Pundi XPASS card.

In July, the Pundi XPOS were launched at the eateries of the FAMA Group in Hong Kong, including Locofama, Sohofama, SUPAFOOD and the Hive Cafe. An even more impressive deployment came just last year at Ultra Taiwan 2018. In what would be a rain-soaked festival, close to 30,000 attendees would pay for their food, drinks, and merchandise using Ultra Coin – the festival’s official digital currency – at the XPOS terminals.

The two partners billed the event as the world’s first blockchain-powered music festival, but the significance of its success is arguably even greater: It showed that handling thousands of crypto transactions from consumers in a real-world setting was not only feasible but practical. Pundi X, in other words, is making crypto usage as mainstream as well, music festivals and hip eateries.

Bitmain

Bitmain was not on Invest in Blockchain’s working products list because it is not based on a cryptocurrency – the company manufactures miners – but it is just as important to highlight here because the wider ecosystem is as full of marketing hype as the cryptocurrency projects themselves.

Just think about how many miners, hard wallets, automated teller machines, and other solutions have failed to materialise after an avalanche of early hype.

Bitmain represents a welcome contrast. Headquartered out of China, Bitmain has created a lineup of powerful Bitcoin and Litecoin miners and has since diversified into managing the largest mining pools in the world and even AI chips.

As of last month, Bitmain even completed its pre-IPO registration in a bid to attract capital to accelerate production of its hardware, and cement its market leadership in crypto technology.

Also Read: Oriente partners with Indonesia’s conglomerate Sinar Mas to launch lending platform

This list is by no means exhaustive. There are plenty of crypto projects and companies in Asia that are doing great work.

This is merely a call to focus on those who are already walking the walk (i.e. helping consumers or enterprises with their products) and not just talking the talk (i.e. marketing what they will one day do).

Exercising greater discipline in who we chose to celebrate will no doubt benefit the industry as a whole, attracting supporters, winning over skeptics, and ultimately legitimizing cryptocurrency as a technology here to stay.

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