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There is No Such Thing As an Offline Business Anymore
Consumer behavior, from the city to the country, has changed. All of our consumer research begins online. Companies who fail to realize this are losing a lot of business.
Over the last decade, there has been a massive shift in consumer behavior. Rather than reading ads, calling information lines, or speaking to sales reps, Google has become the research tool of choice. Before a customer calls your number or walks in your store, you can bet 99% of them already know what they want, and the pros and cons of that choice.
The buying journey begins and ends on the Internet. And smart companies are the ones who are facilitating the buyer’s journey before those customers ever reach their competitors marketing. In short, if you are not actively pursuing customers on the Internet, you are losing business.
‘Brick and Mortar’ Businesses are Relics of the Past
I’m from a small town in rural Oklahoma. We have one traffic light, and it hasn’t worked since I was a little kid. It wasn’t until I moved to the Pacific Northwest and claimed Seattle as my hometown that I became curious as to how the internet was affecting businesses in smaller communities.
I did some research and was surprised at what I found. Let me show you why I believe there are no such thing as offline businesses anymore.
How Do We Solve Our Problems?
Some old-school businessmen might say the Yellow Pages or the newspaper; but that’s no longer true. We ask our questions on Google, and spend a few minutes checking out the results before we start evaluating solutions to our problem.
For instance, as I was preparing to write this article, I saw this question from a friend on Facebook: “Who is the best dentist in Douglasville?”
Now Douglasville, Georgia is a town of about 31,000 people. It’s not tiny, and I’m sure they have more traffic lights than my hometown. But it’s not huge either. I have lived in a city that size and everybody still knows everybody.
So, I wondered how many people are asking that same question to search engines. I went to Google Keyword Planner and started looking up some statistics. What I found should make business owners sit up and take notice.
Over 320 people are searching for “dentist in douglasville ga” every single month. Not only that, but there are a ton of related searches as well. A conservative ballpark would be 500 searches a month.
People don’t search for dentists if they don’t need a dentist.
Traditional “Local” Businesses vs. The Internet
I took my research to the next level by looking up some business traditionally known around town. These are the bread and butter businesses every single township in the united states probably has; like plumbers and auto mechanics.
It was not a surprise to learn well over 200 people are searching for a plumber in Douglasville every month on Google. It’s worth noting; no one looks for a plumber until they need a plumber.
Need someone to fix your car in Douglasville? There are hundreds of people who share your problem and are looking for someone to solve that problem in Google.
I don’t know about you, but I rarely search out mechanics for the fun of it. But when my car started smoking a month ago, I wanted to know who could fix it right at the best price.
Where do you think I started my research?
Hint: I didn’t drive around looking for ads on those expensive billboards, nor did I listen to the radio hoping to hear an ad.
But you can keep spending money on those things if you want.
None of these are warm leads; they are hot leads! And because they are local, the competition is non-existent online. The first company to discover inbound marketing is going to have as much business as they want.
How to Take Your Business Online
The more I talk to companies the more I hear that they understand the need for online marketing, but they just don’t know how or where to start. Let’s take a high-level view of what you should do, and how.
Step 1) Get a Good Website
For a carpenter who needs a straight screwdriver, the prettiest Phillips head isn’t going to be attractive. Good doesn’t mean pretty; it means useful. It gets the job done.
For companies just getting started online, your website should accomplish three things:
Communicate Your Unique Value
It should communicate your unique value proposition (UVP). What is it you provide your customers they can’t get from your competitors? That’s your unique value, and your website should communicate it clearly and directly.
Learn More: 25 Companies Who Absolutely Nailed Their UVP
Be Lead Generation Ready
The purpose of your website is not to broadcast your service to the world. It’s to introduce yourself and ask for information in return. A website should be a dialogue, not a monologue.
Make sure your website is ready to generate leads with an offer you will create in Step 3. This means you need a landing page design with a form that will capture information from your leads like name, address, phone number, and email address.
For some getting started, services like Unbounce or LeadPages can make landing page design easy and fast.
Feature a Blog or Learning Center
Regardless of what you call it, your blog is going to be the backbone of your online marketing strategies. It’s the place where you post fresh, interesting content your potential customers will find interesting, which we will talk about in step 4.
Marcus Sheridan explains the difference in a traditional blog and a newer “learning center” approach. A traditional blog works for most companies. However, for those who need an extensive lead nurturing and customer education system, a learning center may make more sense.
For websites built on WordPress or Drupal, having a blog attached is simple. For other’s, you may have to get a developer to attach a content management system to your website. We use HubSpot, which makes adding must-have features like this super easy.
How to Get a Good Website
There are a few ways you can get your company a good website. You can hire a freelance designer from services like UpWork. If you do this, you will have to closely manage the project and give your freelancer very detailed instructions. It’s a lot of work, but if executed right, you can get great quality development at a lower price.
For companies who want the best, you could hire an agency to develop your website. There are benefits of having an agency develop your website, but the price will be more expensive than freelancer or web development moonlighters. However, for that price you will get access to skills from designers, web developers, and marketing professionals to make sure your website isn’t just good, but remarkable.
Another option is to hire a full-time developer on your team or learn how to put together a website yourself. A full-time employee is normally the most expensive route to developing a website for your company. But for some companies, depending on what they want to do with their website, it’s the best choice.
Learn More: 7 Tips for Finding and Managing Amazing Freelancers
Step 2) Do Keyword Research
Keyword research is done to discover how your target personas are doing their research online. You need to find what they are searching for, and then provide the content that will satisfy that need.
Using the example above, the keyword “dentistry for children in Douglasville, GA” shows me a parent is looking for a good dentist for their kid. The driving desire or pain from that search shows me they don’t want to go to any dentist, they want to go to one who will be great with children.
The winning question is, Why?
What kind of content would address that person’s pain points? If you’re a dentist’s office, you should create content (blog article, video, etc.) that addresses that question. Keyword research reveals what you create in Step 4.
How to Do Keyword Research
This is a huge topic in itself, and there are a lot of ways to do keyword research. Whichever methods you choose, you should create a spreadsheet or list of all of the keywords, long and short-tail, that you can focus on ranking for in Step 4.
We will limit this article to talking about the best two ways to do keyword research:
Tool #1 The Google Suggest Tool
Go to google, and type in “Dentists in Douglasville.”
The suggested searches, both in the drop-down and at the bottom of the search page show common search terms others are using. These are usually long-tail keyword phrases, which are much easier to rank for.
For instance, it’s easier to rank high in the search engines for “Dentists in Douglasville That Accept Medicaid” than it would be for “dentists” or even “dentists in Douglasville.”
To explode these suggestions out even further, you can use a tool called UberSuggest, which brings you an enormous list of phrases pulled from the Google suggest tool. Not all of them are valuable, but you’ll be able to come up with a ton of ideas for valuable keywords.
Tool #2 The Google Keyword Planner
The Keyword Planner is hidden inside a Google Adwords account. It’s primary purpose is for keyword research for paid advertising. But the search amount data for keywords is a great way to find high-value keywords to target in your marketing.
This is where you can get hard numbers on search terms. Most likely, these will be root keywords or short tail keywords. Meaning, keywords with a lot of SEO competition. But when you find a keyword with a lot of search results, it also means that root keyword is going to be in multiplied times that in long-tail phrases.
When I use Keyword Planner, I export all the keywords I feel are most valuable to target. And then, I run them through the keyword suggest tool to see what kind of long-tails I can find that I should target.
Learn More: How to Find and Target High Value Keywords for Your Business
Step 3) Create a Lead Generation Content Offer
In this step, we need to create the free product your ideal customers will want to download. This is what you offer them in the landing pages from step 1.
There are many possibilities for content offers, the most popular being an eBook of some kind. If you’re just getting started, try to create an offer that relates to all of your target personas, and one that fits at the top of the buyers journey.
Carrying on the dentist example, a great offer might be, “X Signs a Dentist is Great With Children,” or “The Scared Patient’s Guide to Finding a Gentle Dentist.” These are only ideas, but you should create an eBook or Case Study, or some other premium content your ideal customers would want to read.
Then, you put it into PDF format and offer it as a download to everyone who will submit the form on the landing page.
This is where you capture your leads and start the nurturing process.
Learn More: How to Create Marketing Offers That Don’t Fall Flat
Step 4) Provide Fresh, Interesting Content On Your Blog
This is where you attract your ideal customers to your website. The goal is not to write about your service or product. The goal is to write about the things that interest them and make their life better in some way.
Always remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them. Don’t use your blog for sales pitches. Use it to solve their problems and answer their questions.
The problem most companies face is writer’s block; they don’t know what content will be attractive to their customers. This article will show you how to come up with 100 blog topics your customers will be very interested in.
Consult your keyword research. Use the questions your customers are posing to Google (Google Suggest Results) and produce content that addresses those concerns exactly.
Step 5) Join the Social Media World
Who are your ideal customers, and where do they go for content?
- If you’re a B2B company, LinkedIn is probably your best network.
- If you’re B2C, Facebook or Pinterest might bring you the best return.
- If you’re a SaaS company, Twitter might be where you find the most engagement.
As a rule of thumb, don’t try to be omnipresent. It’s a waste of time.
Find out where your ideal customers hang out online, go there and mix it up with them. This is a great place to share your content from step 4. But, a word of warning, don’t just spam your channel with your blog posts. This is a place to have fun and be social. Share things that interest you and them, even things that have nothing to do with your business.
Step 6) Measure, Learn, and Adapt.
Marketing online is not a campaign. This is something we, as a marketing agency, face with customers all the time. Doing inbound marketing is not something you will push this year, then move on. It’s a way of life; it’s the way it’s going to be moving forward.
For your first 12 months, you will be learning a lot, most of what not to do. Having negative results is frustrating when you’re just trying something out. But when you are truly an inbound marketing company, negative results teach you how to be better going forward.
Whatever you try, be it paid ads or premium content offers, test and see how they perform. Measure their effectiveness against your goals. And then figure out how to make them work better moving forward.
Test. Try new things. Try different content. Try videos instead of slide decks. Try long “deep dive” articles, instead of short, simple ones. Test, test, test. Then, find something that works and focus on it. Then, test some more to improve it even more.
Offline-Only Business Goes Extinct
Online marketing is not a fad, and it’s not a one-time test. It’s the way businesses will be for the foreseeable future.
In times past, the most important thing to success was location, location, location. If a store was on the main road and had a big, noticeable sign; life was good.
Today, if you’re not actively marketing online, someone eventually will. And they will take your customers quickly.
Jump out in front, and find success. There is no such thing as an offline business anymore. They are going the way of the dinosaurs, very quickly.
Is Apple killing Black Friday or just outsourcing it to its retail partners?
One of the things Apple’s retail head Angela Ahrendts said in her interview with Fast Company‘s Rick Tetzei is that Apple had made the decision to back away from Black Friday sales because “being good to your employees will always be good for business.”
Rather than extending store hours for Black Friday events, or just turning the stores into even more crowded places during what has increasingly turned into Black November rather than just Black Friday, Ahrendts decided to give staff a break. That’s great and should be applauded but why not just do an online sale? Do the computers need the time off too?
Even more curious, Apple, who controls US retailer pricing, seems to be letting every US retailer knock huge amounts off of all Apple products for Black Friday…
It’s not as if Apple has ever indulged in Black Friday in a big way. Pretty much what it did was extend educational pricing to everyone, which amounted to a typical discount of around 10%. Nice, but not dramatic. It went a little further on third-party accessories, discounting these by 15-20%, but again nothing like the kind of deals available on other products.
The problem for Apple bargain hunters was you couldn’t do much better elsewhere – especially on iOS devices. Apple reportedly offered retailers such slim margins on its products, sometimes as low as two or three percent, that other stores had little room for manoeuvre.
This, however, appears to be changing. My colleagues on 9to5Toys have been regularly spotting decent discounts on iPads beginning soon after a new model is launched, and we’re already seeing some early and heavy discounting on Apple products – including the Apple Watch. Some of it could be retailers running loss-leaders to get people in the doors, but the longer-term discounting seen suggests that it’s more likely to be Apple offering better margins to facilitate such offers.
Which is a tactic I think makes a lot of sense. Apple’s vision for its retail stores is for them to be calm and peaceful places where you can play with the products, get advice from staff and assistance with existing products. The reality in the bigger Apple Stores at peak times is very far removed from this – packed with so many people you can scarcely move, let alone get a decent chunk of time to play with a product or have a relaxed conversation with a member of staff. The very last thing Apple wants to do is bring in hordes of bargain hunters to make the situation worse.
Even without Black November, however, Apple remains a victim of its own success in terms of the retail experience. It’s rolling out new stores all the time, many cities now having multiple outlets, but is still struggling to cope. Which is why I think Ahrendts’ vision is about moving the retail stores to more of a showroom experience, with as much of the purchasing as possible driven online. Jony Ives’ redesign of the stores also seems to give them more of a showroom type feel.
We saw this showroom approach with the Apple Watch, of course. Rather than have the crazy launch-day store experience we see with iPhones, Apple initially made the decision to offer try-ons and demonstrations in store, then to direct customers to make their purchases online. In other words, to have the Apple Store act as a showroom.
But the other thing we saw then, and which impressed me at the time, was the degree of integration between the offline and online worlds. As I wrote then:
I waited there all of ten seconds before I was taken to meet the man who would be handling my try-on. When he pulled up my appointment on his terminal, he could see the two watches I had favorited on the Apple website, and immediately pulled the first of these out of the drawer: the stainless steel with black classic buckle.
I was instantly impressed. It had always previously felt like the retail stores and online store were entirely separate worlds, but here the two were seamlessly integrated.
This is the type of experience Ahrendts had previously been working to deliver in her previous role as Burberry CEO, her vision then of a retail future that completely blurred the lines between the physical and digital environments.
We’ve also seen greater integration on Apple’s website. Previously, you used the main site to learn about products, then went to the separate online store section to buy something. Now, there’s just one site, with a Buy option for each product – something that already seems so natural it’s hard to imagine why Apple would ever have done it any other way.
Ahrendts’ vision for Burberry went further, with things like chip-enabled products that would display information about themselves in a mirror when you tried them on, and ‘magical trays’ that would play a product video as soon as you picked them up.
Of course, Apple has one huge advantage over Burberry: its products can already introduce themselves – and we’ve already seen one in-store change to reflect this. Out went the old companion iPad-based Smart Signs and in came apps running on the demo products themselves. That reduced clutter and allowed room for more people to play with products – which helps reduce crowding as fewer people are waiting to have their play.
We’re not seeing a complete transition of the Apple Store experience. I think Apple sees the launch day queues for the iPhone as too good a PR coup to pass up. But I do think we’ll see further moves toward Apple Stores being less geared to immediate sales – and that Black Friday bargain hunters will need to continue to look elsewhere.
Dan DeSilva kindly contributed to this piece.
Filed under: Opinion Tagged: AAPL, Angela Ahrendts, Apple Retail Store, Apple retail stores, Apple Store, Black Friday, Black Friday Apple, Black Friday iPad, Black Friday iPhone, Black Friday Mac
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7 Lead-Off Mistakes to Avoid as a First Time Manager
7 Lead-Off Mistakes to Avoid as a First Time Manager
By Art Petty
Establishing yourself as a credible and positive leader is important and challenging. Here are some all-too-common missteps of first-time (and even some hapless, experienced) managers. Avoid them in good health!
Leading-off with, “Things are going to change around here.” Too many managers enter into a […]
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Former Mercedes R&D chief leaves Apple after just a year to join Volkswagen
After just over a year at Apple, former Mercedes R&D chief Johann Jungwirth left the company earlier this month to join Volkswagen AG as the new ‘Head of Digital Transformation’. Even though his official title at Apple was “Director of Mac Systems Engineering”, the executive was rumored to be working on the company’s electric car codenamed “Project Titan” due to his extensive automotive background and the timing of the hire, which was followed by several other engineering hires with experience in the auto industry.
Jungwirth is joining Volkswagen amid the “DieselGate” scandal which is pushing the company to try to reinvent itself.
From his LinkedIn profile:
If Jungwirth was indeed working on “Project Titan”, his leaving isn’t likely to make the team short-staffed considering recent reports asserting that Apple tripled the size of the development team by adding 1,200 employees to the program.
When working at Mercedes, Jungwirth was leading the company’s “connected car” effort. Apple recently hired another engineer with a similar experience in fleet management of connected cars and digital license plates.
Mark Gurman contributed to this report.
Filed under: Apple Car Tagged: Apple Car, Johann Jungwirth, Project Titan, Volkswagen
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Google Maps is bringing offline navigation and downloadable data to iOS
Google will soon be bringing a major new feature to its Maps app for iOS: full offline support. Google Maps has some utility already when used offline, but an upcoming update will make it much more robust when used without Internet access. For example, before you could see an area on Google Maps offline but not do much else with it. Coming soon, Google will enable features including navigation and business information lookup without requiring an active Internet connection.
Google Maps’ upcoming offline features work by allowing you to first download sections of the map for offline use ahead of time. Once you download an area over Wi-Fi, even features like search and viewing business hours and ratings will work without ever touching your cellular data.
Some features will still require an active Internet connection when using Google Maps, as you would expect, like receiving traffic alerts during your route. But all in the all, offline mode for navigation and search should be huge for loads of users whether you’re counting data under a capped plan or just have poor access to a cellular connection in low coverage areas.
Google Maps’ new offline mode feature is rolling out on Android today, the company says, and coming soon to iOS. Google also recently updated Maps to work with Apple Watch.
Filed under: Apps Tagged: Google Maps, navigation
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Feature Request: A Magic AirPort Extreme with smart downloads, better debugging + prioritized devices
Feature Request is a new regular 9to5Mac series where authors offer their opinions on how to improve popular hardware or software products.
Apple’s AirPort wireless routers aren’t cheap, but many people — including me — keep buying them because they “just work” most of the time. Connect an AirPort Extreme or AirPort Express to your cable modem and you’ll get a consistently great wireless connection across all of your Macs, iPads, iPhones, iPod touches, and accessories, as well as non-Apple products. But the AirPorts could do more, and Apple knows it. Four years ago, the company was openly working on some cool next-generation router features that apparently didn’t wind up in its devices. These days, with Apple TVs and AirPlay streaming at the peak of their popularity, Apple’s routers need to be smarter about streaming high-bitrate video and audio. Here’s how AirPort routers should take the next steps forward…
Using AirPort To Enable Faster, Lower-Bandwidth Software Updates (And Media Streaming?)
The AirPort family has been a good product line for Apple. Basic $99 and mid-range $199 AirPort routers are an insurance policy against losing hours of your life to solving arcane networking problems. Apple’s $299 to $399 hard drive-laden AirPort Time Capsules go a step further, insuring against losing months or years of your work by quietly backing up your Macs. Integrating a full hard drive into Time Capsules gives them the ability to store terabytes of data, but as $69 Apple TVs (which look virtually identical to current AirPort Express routers) demonstrate, Apple easily could include a flash memory cache in even entry-level AirPort devices.
Why would every AirPort need spare memory? An Apple user’s home or office typically hosts multiple Apple devices — yours, and ones belonging to your family members or coworkers. It’s not unusual for a family of four to have at least two Macs, a few iPads, and several iPhones. Similarly, businesses often have a lot of similar devices connecting to their networks. Why should every device have to individually download the same files (such as software updates) from Apple’s servers, wasting time and bandwidth in the process?
As 9to5Mac’s Seth Weintraub noted four years ago, Apple had a brilliant solution in mind for this.
What we do know is that Apple has been internally testing Time Capsules to cache Software Updates for both Mac and iOS devices. The way we’ve heard it works is that the new Time Capsule learns which devices connect to it via Wifi. It then goes out to Apple’s servers and downloads Software Updates for those products.
Doesn’t that sound great? You get home with your iPhone and the latest version of iOS is just waiting for you — and for every other iPhone in your house. Or, rather than downloading gigabytes worth of OS X over and over again for your Macs, a master file’s just sitting on your AirPort router waiting to install the right pieces on all of your machines. Another 9to5 report noted that Apple was so close to implementing this feature that references were being found in release of OS X. Code in AirPort Utility said:
Apple software updates that are copied to this [device] are available to anyone using this network.
Some people might argue that delta updates, device-specific OS builds, and/or asynchronous device updating reduce the need for a feature like this. But I’d personally rather download a slightly larger iOS or OS X build once and have the right pieces applied to all the devices in my home, than download slightly smaller builds from Apple’s servers over and over again. Think of the bandwidth you could save by having your AirPort router cache app updates and media files this way, as well…
Modern Routers Should Do Better At Prioritizing Media Streaming And Explaining Issues
One of the biggest issues I’ve seen with routers over the past five years is choking of streaming video or audio, an issue that can be external to your network (Netflix’s or your broadband provider’s fault) or internal (your router’s, cable modem’s, or device’s fault). An entire category of AirPlay speaker accessories withered on the vine because of widespread and never quite resolved problems with in-home audio streaming. Similarly, as Netflix and iTunes video streaming have become more popular, stories of stopping or stuttering videos are on the increase. Average people know that their streams aren’t working, but have no idea how to fix or even diagnose the problems.
It would be unfair (and factually inaccurate) to say that Apple has done nothing to remedy these issues. There have apparently been some quiet changes to Apple’s software to improve streaming reliability, but they haven’t been broadly communicated to consumers, and significant problems persist — both with the way routers prioritize streams, and their diagnostic tools. Adults don’t have an easy way to determine, for instance, whether their kids’ video streams or downloads are clogging the network. Nor do they have the ability to set streaming priority for certain devices or applications (say, Mom’s Office Mac or Apple TV wins out over Junior’s iPod touch).
Stuttering, stopping, and buffering happen when a data-hungry device can’t get fed at the pace it needs, and ultimately, the router is the hub where these decisions are made. Apple could make a real difference by giving users — specifically, wireless network owners — easy but powerful control over in-home competition for limited wireless bandwidth. It could also help a lot by improving iOS’s and OS X’s consumer-level diagnostic tools so that problem devices and streams could be quickly detected and labeled green/yellow/red, preferably with suggested fixes.
Most of the suggestions above could be implemented in software. Since nearly a year has passed since the last AirPort Extreme firmware update, it’s possible that Apple is working on a big fix, or that the same team was busy with something else. Regardless, now that the Apple TV has launched as an independent platform, helping users control the media streaming in their homes is going to become more important than ever before.
Something Else?
Reader Dan Bridgland wrote to us to suggest that he finds it “remarkable that Apple are still selling broadly mono feature devices like the AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express.” Calling them “one trick ponies in an ever evolving and converging world,” Dan suggests that Apple integrate router features directly into cable modems, Apple TVs, and basic AirPlay adapters, getting rid of standalone AirPort routers in the process. What do you think?
More From This Author
Check out more of my editorials, How-To guides, and reviews for 9to5Mac here! I’ve covered a lot of different topics of interest to Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, and Apple Watch users. In addition to my popular guide to the best Apple Watch docks and stands, I’ve recently discussed how to safely prepare and wipe your iPhone for resale or trade-in, and how to get the best iPhone trade-in price to help buy an iPhone 6s, amongst many other topics.
Filed under: Apple TV, iOS, iOS Devices, Mac, Opinion Tagged: AirPort Extreme, Feature Request, Mac, Magic AirPort Extreme, OS X
Continue reading more about iOS Devices, iOS, and Mac at 9to5Mac.
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12 Critical Elements Every Website Homepage Must Have [Infographic]
If you’re considering a website redesign or are wondering how to generate more leads from your website, it’s a good idea to start with your homepage.
Serving as your company’s virtual front door, this page is generally responsible for drawing in a majority of your website’s traffic. And despite its prominence, many businesses struggle to optimize it properly.
You see, your homepage needs to wear a lot of hats. Rather than treating it like a dedicated landing page built around one particular action, it should be designed to serve different audiences, from different origins.
To inspire action, your homepage should be built with purpose. In other words, you’ll need to incorporate elements that attract traffic, educate visitors, and invite conversions. To improve the performance of your homepage, check out the following infographic detailing 12 critical elements every homepage must have.
Download our collection of website homepage design examples here to see how these elements come together.
12 Critical Elements Every Website Homepage Must Have
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What You Should Include in Your Website Homepage Design
1) Headline
Within three seconds, a website needs to tell visitors what the business has to offer. That’s where your headline comes in. It may only be a few words, but it’s one of the most important piece of copy on your website.
Many different types of people might visitor your website, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a few words that hit home for everyone. Instead, the folks at KISSmetrics recommend writing your headline to target the 20–35% of those people that are most likely to be happy with your product.
Keep the headline itself clear and simple. Dropbox‘s headline is a great example: “Securely share, sync, and collaborate.” It’s simple, yet powerful — no need to decode jargon to figure out what Dropbox really does. Plus, the word “securely” touches on a pain point for people looking for file managers. Notice how they repeat that word again in the sub-headline to really drive the point home.
2) Sub-headline
Your sub-headline should supplement the headline by offering a brief description of what you do or what you offer. This can be done effectively by zeroing in on a common pain point that your product or service solves.
To optimize your headlines and text for mobile, use larger fonts to give visitors a better experience. Small fonts could force mobile visitors to pinch and zoom in order to read and interact with the content on your site. Our advice? Make your headlines and sub-headlines at least 22 px, and body copy at least 14 px.
Here’s an example of a great sub-headline from Podio: “Try the customisable work management solution leaders trust and employees love working on.” It hones in on a few common pain points for work management solutions by assuring visitors it’s customisable, trustworthy, and enjoyable to work with.
3) Primary Calls-to-Action
The goal of your homepage is to compel visitors to dig deeper into your website and move them further down the funnel. Include two to three calls-to-action above the fold that direct people to different stages of the buying cycle — and place them in spots that are easy to find.
These CTAs should be visually striking, ideally in a color that contrasts from the color scheme of your homepage, while still fitting in with the overall design. Keep the copy brief — no more than five words — and action-oriented, so it compels visitors to click whatever you’re offering. Examples of CTA copy are “Sign up,” “Make an appointment,” or “Try it for free.”
To optimize your CTAs for mobile users, make sure it’s big enough to easily touch with a finger. If you’re using a button, make it a minimum size of 44 px by 44 px so it’s big enough for people to press with their finger. Consider adding whitespace around your CTA, too, so mobile visitors can easily tap it without accidentally clicking on something they didn’t mean to.
Uber has a few great Primary CTAs on their homepage that are geared toward different personas: “Become a Driver” for potential drivers, and “Sign Up” for potential riders. Notice how starkly the bright blue CTAs contrast with the dark background.
4) Supporting Image
Most people are visual. Make sure to use an image (or even a short video) that clearly indicates what you offer. Use images that capture emotion and cause action, and avoid cheesy stock photos. (Here’s a list of 17 great places to find free stock photos online.)
To optimize your images for mobile users, use high-quality images that have a reduced file size. (HubSpot customers don’t need to worry about this, as images uploaded to HubSpot’s software are automatically compressed. Otherwise, tools like TinyPNG will do the trick.) Also, add alt text to your images in case mobile devices block any images by default.
The 4 Rivers Smokehouse homepage is a great example of emotional imagery: It features a series of short, high definition, and mouthwatering videos that play on a loop behind a simple headline, sub-headline, and primary CTA:
5) Benefits
It’s not only important to describe what you do, but also why what you do matters. Prospects want to know about the benefits of buying from you because that’s what’ll compel them to stick around.
Keep the copy lightweight and easy to read, and speak the language of your customers. Evernote does a great job of listing features on their homepage in a way that’s compelling, visually pleasing, and easy to understand:
6) Social Proof
Social proof is a powerful indicator of trust. Your product or service could be the best in the world, and it’s okay to lay that claim — it’s just that people may not believe you unless they hear it from other people, too. And that’s exactly what social proof does.
Include just a few of your best (short) quotes on the homepage, and link to case studies if applicable. Adding a name and photo gives these testimonials more credibility. Codecademy nails this on their homepage, and you can click into any one story to read the whole case study:
7) Navigation
The design and content in your homepage navigation could mean the difference between a website conversion and a bounce. To decrease bounce rate, give your visitors a clear path into your site from the homepage. Make the navigation menu visible at the top of the page, and organize the links in a hierarchical structure.
No one knows your website better than those who helped design it, so be sure to conduct user tests to make sure it’s simple and intuitive for visitors to find what they’re looking for on your site. Include a search box if you can. (Read this blog post for more helpful website navigation tips.)
Here’s an example of clear, well structured navigation design from Geek Squad‘s homepage:
8) Content Offer
To generate even more leads from your homepage, feature a really great content offer, such as a whitepaper, ebook, or guide. Folks who may not be ready to buy might rather download an offer that gives them more information about a topic they’re interested in. If you need inspiration, here are 23 different content types to pick from.
Below is an excerpt from IMPACT‘s homepage. Below the fold, they offer four free ebooks on their own growth hacking secrets:
9) Secondary Calls-to-Action
Include secondary CTAs on your homepage to offer additional conversion opportunities for prospects who aren’t interested in your primary objective. Think of them like the contingency plan: They offer another path for visitors who are not yet ready for something as high-commitment as you’re asking.
While your primary CTAs should be above the fold, place secondary CTAs below the fold to give visitors things to click on when they scroll down. For example, below the fold on Trustev‘s homepage, you’ll find three, clearly labeled calls-to-action that give folks who’ve scrolled that far more options to click on. These secondary CTAs target three different categories — retailers, virtual goods, and financial — that appeal to three different buyer personas.
10) Features
In addition to benefits, list some of your key features. This gives people more of an understanding of what’s provided by your products and services. Again, keep the copy light and easy to ready. Dropbox for Business, for example, doesn’t shy away from showing off a features matrix right on their homepage below the fold.
11) Resources
Again, most visitors to your website won’t be ready to buy … yet. For folks who are looking for more information, offer a link to a resource center where they can browse relevant information. Not only does this keep them on your webpage for longer, but it also helps you establish your credibility as a thought leader in your industry.
KnowledgeVision makes a resources link one of their secondary CTAs below the fold. Notice how each of these secondary CTAs cover multiple stages in the buying cycle: a demo for people close to buying, examples for people who are interested but want more information, and resources for folks closer to the top of the funnel.
12) Success Indicators
In addition to customer success stories, both awards and recognition can also help inspire a good first impression. Is your company a critically acclaimed restaurant? Were you voted best new app this year? Let your homepage visitors know of your accomplishments. Like social proof, it’ll give your business more credibility to those who don’t know you.
On Cleanify‘s homepage, for example, you’ll find the names of famous publications that have written about them, like The New York Times and TechCrunch:
Don’t Forget to Optimize For Mobile
Whether you’re tweaking your homepage or redesigning it completely, be sure that it is fully optimized for mobile. Not only are mobile-friendly websites better for SEO thanks to Google’s algorithm change in April 2015, but they also make for a much better user experience for the increasing number of people browsing the web on their mobile devices.
Making your homepage mobile-friendly includes optimizing your headlines, sub-headlines, and body text copy, your calls-to-action, your images, and more. Here are some mobile optimization tips to get you started.
Does your website’s homepage have all or most of these elements? Are there any we missed? Share with us in the comments.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in January 2012 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.
Promised Siri support for Apple Music on Apple TV already present in tvOS 9.1 beta (Video)
Apple recently confirmed that the Apple TV will get Siri support for Apple Music from the beginning of next year, and iDownloadBlog‘s Jeff Benjamin found that it’s already present in the beta of tvOS 9.1.
You can now direct the remote assistant to play any song or album directly from Apple Music, even if the song or album isn’t in your library. Siri can even search for songs on Apple Music, play Play Beats 1 radio, and more.
Benjamin demo’d the functionality in a video (below) …
He found that you can tell Siri to play an artist, album, song or playlist, as well as play Beats 1 radio, mimicking the functionality offered on an iPhone and iPad.
Filed under: Apple Music, Apple TV Tagged: Apple Music, Apple TV, Siri, tvOS
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Tim Cook hints at new health products beyond the Watch; talks Apple TV, iPad Pro killing PCs, encryption
In a wide-ranging interview with the Telegraph, Apple CEO Tim Cook has hinted that the company may launch more health-focused products in future – but will keep those separate from the Apple Watch. The reason, he says, is that the FDA approval needed for full-on health devices would slow down the pace of innovation of the Watch.
Cook hints that Apple may have more plans for the health sphere, in a revelation which will intrigue Wall Street, but he doesn’t want the watch itself to become a regulated, government-licensed health product. “We don’t want to put the watch through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) process. I wouldn’t mind putting something adjacent to the watch through it, but not the watch, because it would hold us back from innovating too much, the cycles are too long. But you can begin to envision other things that might be adjacent to it — maybe an app, maybe something else.”
This represents a significant change from expectations …
It had previously been expected that Apple would add further sensors to future models of the Watch, giving it more health and fitness functionality. Speculation has included both O2 saturation – something that could potentially have been done with the existing heart-rate monitor – and blood sugar monitoring.
While Cook is giving nothing away, suggesting that future health plans may be limited to apps, many measurements would require hardware – and it now seems that hardware won’t be built into the Watch.
He again wouldn’t be drawn on Watch sales, but said that he expected to set a new sales record this quarter – though this is pretty much a no-brainer in the holiday season.
Similarly with the new Apple TV, he would say only that early sales have been “extremely strong, very strong.” He added that the number of apps being created have been “much larger than we would have predicted.” Given the variety of these – from games to home rentals – Cook argues that the device “will really change the living room entirely.”
He also deflected the talk of Apple offering its own TV subscription, replacing cable service.
We will see. The key question for us is: can we do something better, that acts as a catalyst? If we conclude that we can, then we would. But I wouldn’t do something just to do something.
Cook also suggested that with the launch of the iPad Pro would accelerate the post-PC era long predicted by Steve Jobs.
I think if you’re looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?
Yes, the iPad Pro is a replacement for a notebook or a desktop for many, many people. They will start using it and conclude they no longer need to use anything else, other than their phones.
He acknowledged that the move to larger iPhones had cannibalised existing iPad sales, but repeated an oft-heard line that Apple isn’t afraid to do so.
“I think if you have the larger phone, you’re less likely to have the iPad mini”, he says, though he insists that the demand won’t fall to zero.
Some consumers use the iPad mini to read in bed, he says, finding it more relaxing than using a phone and the busyness that goes with it. That won’t change, he believes. “But I think it clearly created some cannibalisation – which we knew would occur – but we don’t really spend any time worrying about that, because as long as we cannibalise [ourselves], it’s fine.”
Finally, Cook weighed in on the British government’s controversial Investigatory Powers Bill – which has been dubbed the Snooper’s Charter. This would require tech companies to provide decrypted versions of user communications to the authorities when presented with a warrant. Apple would currently be unable to do so for iMessages or FaceTime, as both employ end-to-end encryption, meaning that Apple doesn’t hold the key.
Any backdoor is a backdoor for everyone. Everybody wants to crack down on terrorists. Everybody wants to be secure. The question is how. Opening a backdoor can have very dire consequences […]
If you halt or weaken encryption, the people that you hurt are not the folks that want to do bad things. It’s the good people. The other people know where to go
Cook added that he was optimistic that the proposed new law will be rejected as both the public and the press are “engaged deeply” in the debate.
Filed under: AAPL Company, Apple TV, Apple Watch, iOS Devices Tagged: Apple TV, Apple watch, Encryption, FaceTime, fitness, Food and Drug Administration, Health, iMessage, iPad Pro, privacy, Security
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SWOT Analysis: Is Instagram Right for Your Media Brand?
Seemingly out of nowhere, Instagram took the world by storm and became a social media hub for hundreds of millions of people. As of October 2015, there are 400M+ daily active users, 80M+ photos per day, and 3.5B daily likes.
For publishers looking to build an audience, the opportunity on Instagram is massive—publishers like Mashable, National Geographic, and Vogue have all had success in growing their follower counts from zero, to hundreds of thousands, and even millions. The reason? Instagram is a powerful storytelling medium, and with just one photo, brands can capture their audience’s attention, inspire dialogue, and build their companies’ narratives.
The power of Instagram is undisputed, but is it right for your media company? This question is a tough one to answer. For your Instagram strategy to take off, you need to do more than start posting photos. You need to come up with a visual style guide, figure out what types of images to share, and figure out how your efforts fit into your circulation strategy. Not to mention, you’re likely present on other social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Pinterest already.
If you’re present in too many social media channels, without the people-power, you’ll risk spreading your efforts too thin. If you’re considering being present on Instagram, you need to be ready to double-down and invest in the right resources.
If you’re on the fence about whether to take the jump and develop an Instagram presence, the following SWOT analysis will help. Let’s get to it.
Strengths
The biggest strength of Instagram is its community and value proposition. People on the platform are sharing beautiful, inspiring photos for others to appreciate. By being a part of this ecosystem, your media company will find new touch points for reaching and communicating with your audiences. Not to mention, Instagram is low-touch and extremely efficient on the user side: how many photos could you swipe through in an hour when you’re taking a brain break? Most likely, you can digest more photos than blog posts or ebooks.
There are several other strengths to consider:
- Massive audience reach
- High engagement levels
- A way to engage with audiences that adds value and isn’t salesy
- Hashtags to capitalize on real-time trends
- A way to engage with readers and prospective readers in a channel that they love
Weaknesses
From a publisher’s perspective, Instagram’s biggest weakness is that its web traffic is self-contained. Currently, there is no way to link to your site or drive traffic from the platform. If you build an audience on Instagram, you’re going to need to engage with them on the platform.
As a publisher, web traffic is the bread and butter of your company. Not to mention, publishers are always in a crunch for more eyeballs. If you’re looking for a low-hanging burst in website traffic, Instagram probably won’t help: your best option here is likely a focus on SEO or paid channel advertising.
What’s important to keep in mind, however, is that web traffic market share is getting more difficult to attain. You can’t just compel people into clicking your links: you need to provide information or an offer that delivers a strong value proposition. That being said, Instagram can help you reinforce your media company’s brand identity.
Instead of thinking about Instagram as a way to drive traffic, think about it as a top-of-funnel marketing investment. With this perspective, some companies will want to delay their decisions to join Instagram: for instance, you may want to wait until you’ve already developed a steady, repeatable traffic stream and have the resources to invest in more top-of-funnel activities. The right path forward depends on the stage of your company.
Opportunities
As a relatively new social media platform—compared to Facebook and Twitter, which are both more established—Instagram is a space that is still being defined: the company is still testing monetization and traffic circulation features. Joining the platform now will have its advantages because you can study engagement patterns and set your own trends. There’s a strong window of opportunity for your media company to establish itself and build a presence.
Eventually, there will likely be algorithms to fight and competition through paid channel advertising networks. By getting into the ground floor early, however, you’ll be in a great position to explore new opportunities as Instagram as they arise. WIth an established following, investment in PPC will go further. Not to mention, you can also test the company’s up and coming monetization channels to carve out new revenue streams for your advertiser partners.
It’s a story in the making, and your brand can become a core part of it.
Threats
Just like any other social media platform, the Instagram ecosystem is changing. Over time, it’s going to become competitive—especially now that the company has an open ads API that allows for tasks including scheduling and publishing content.
This technology will give established players and big, resource-driven organizations a competitive advantage. But here’s the thing: the ecosystem is still early enough that any company could become a dominant player.
You shouldn’t let future competition scare you. You’re a competitive player right now.
Final thoughts
Instagram is a platform with immense potential. It’s also an ecosystem with an early market opportunity for building an audience. Before you take the jump and invest in building an Instagram presence, however, you need to make sure that the social media network is the right fit for your needs. Do your due diligence, and commit to the marketing channels that are right for you.
Which Marketing Tactics Are The Most Overrated? [New Data]
If you were to ask a room full of marketers from all over the world which marketing tactics they think are least worth the investment, you’d probably get a flurry of strong opinions.
But what if you asked them to name the most overrated marketing tactic? Would their answers vary that much?
We surveyed 4,000 marketers and salespeople around the globe for our 2015 State of Inbound report and found that, no matter where they came from, marketers agreed on the #1 most overrated marketing tactic.
Specifically, we asked our survey respondents to rate the following marketing tactics on how overrated they think they are: blogging, social media, sales enablement, collateral development, SEO, email marketing, traditional paid advertising, online paid advertising, and PR.
Here’s what we found.
What’s the Most Overrated Marketing Tactic?
According to our research, marketers around the globe agree that traditional paid advertising is the #1 most overrated marketing tactic.
Even outbound marketers think so: We found that 32% of outbound marketers said outbound marketing tactics, like traditional paid advertising, are overrated.
Interestingly, while agencies and vendors agreed traditional paid channels are the most overrated, nonprofit marketers cited social media as the most overrated tactic.
When we segmented these results by region, here’s what we found:
In Australia and New Zealand (ANZ): More people (42%) cited traditional outbound marketing tactics — like print ads, outdoor ads, and broadcasts — as the most overrated marketing tactic than anywhere else in the world. According to folks in Australia and New Zealand, the second most overrated marketing tactic was social media (14%), followed by online paid advertising (11%). The least overrated marketing tactics were blogging (1%) and collateral development (2%).
In Asia-Pacific (APAC): Most people (28%) cited traditional outbound marketing tactics as the most overrated marketing tactic. The next most overrated marketing tactic, according to people in Asia-Pacific, was online paid advertising tactics (15%), followed by social media (14%). The least overrated marketing tactics were sales enablement (4%) and blogging (5%).
In Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA): Just over one-third of people (34%) cited traditional outbound marketing tactics as the most overrated marketing tactic. The next most overrated marketing tactic, according to folks in this region, was online paid advertising (13%), followed by social media (11%). The least overrated marketing tactics were collateral development (4%) and sales enablement (4%).
In Latin America (LATAM): Just over one-third of people (34%) cited traditional outbound marketing tactics as the most overrated marketing tactic. The next most overrated marketing tactic, according to folks in this region, was social media (15%), followed by online paid advertising (14%). The least overrated marketing tactics were collateral development (3%) and sales enablement (3%).
In North America (NORTHAM): Most people (41%) cited traditional outbound marketing tactics as the most overrated marketing tactic. According to people in North America, the next most overrated marketing tactic was online paid advertising (16%), followed by social media (11%). The least overrated marketing tactics were sales enablement (2%) and SEO (3%).
A Few Observations
Even outbound marketers think outbound marketing is overrated.
When it comes to generating leads and filling the top of your sales funnel, traditional outbound marketing tactics — where marketers push their message out far and wide in the hopes that it’ll resonate — isn’t as effective as it used to be.
It comes as no surprise that more marketers year-over-year are universally embracing inbound marketing tactics (where marketers help themselves “get found” by people already learning about and shopping in their industry) over outbound marketing tactics. Our data shows that in most regions of the world, content marketing tactics like blogging and collateral development were cited as the least overrated marketing tactics.
But, according to our data, it’s not just inbound marketers who rate outbound marketing tactics as overrated — even those who identify as outbound marketers think so. Roughly 32% of survey respondents whose companies identify as primarily outbound organizations called paid advertising the most overrated marketing tactic — the number one answer by a wide margin.
Image Credit: HubSpot’s State of Inbound 2015 Report
While this could be explained by large companies (200+ employees) dedicating money to paid as a sort of diversification of their marketing portfolio, it’s worth repeating that the smart money is on inbound.
But outbound efforts can be great supplements to your inbound efforts.
Although marketers across the board rated outbound tactics as the most overrated of all marketing tactics, that doesn’t mean marketers should cut them out of their strategy completely.
If it’s in your budget, online outbound marketing tactics like social media advertising and PPC are actually great supplements to those more effective inbound marketing efforts.
When done right, ads can play an important role in giving proven content a more prominent stage, whether it’s in maximizing reach to an existing audience or launching campaigns in a new market. For example, users who are retargeted to are 70% more likely to convert. And native ads that include rich media boost conversion rates by up to 60%.
And because these tactics are done online, it’s easier to measure their ROI — especially if you have the right tools. One reason online outbound tactics were rated as one of the most overrated marketing tactics under offline outbound tactics is likely because many marketers still haven’t been able to measure their efforts — though current tools can help you do that much better. (HubSpot customers: Read this post on our customer blog for tips on measuring the ROI of social using HubSpot.)
That being said, each social network comes with its own strengths and weaknesses. Read this blog post to learn more about the pros and cons of advertising on each platform. If you want a more comprehensive guide to social media advertising, download and read our free ebook, The Essential Guide to Social Media Advertising.
Are we seeing signs of social media fatigue?
Finally, you’ll notice social media was the one inbound marketing tactic that was considered overrated in several regions of the world. For instance, although folks in Latin America have broadly adopted social media, 15% of marketers in that region said social media was overrated. In Australia and New Zealand, 14% cited social media as overrated. Not to mention, social media was the third most overrated marketing tactic in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and North America.
What does this say about the state of social media marketing? Where is the fatigue coming from?
After all, social media activity actually has potential to help increase website traffic and sales. It impacts your organic search presence, helping your content rank higher in search engines. It’s also a way for businesses to speak directly with their customers, which helps build customer loyalty. For example, a company called Coffee Groundz started using Twitter as a direct order channel with customers and increased sales and market share via Twitter by 20-30%.
Marketers experiencing social media fatigue are likely having trouble strategizing and picking the right tools to achieve the results they’re looking for.
- For some, it could be an efficiency issue — which is why we recommend streamlining your efforts by using a social media content calendar.
- For others, it’s a lack of a solid social strategy. According to data analysis from SOBCon Founder and CEO Liz Strauss, a significant number of marketers “are using social channels in a non-useful manner: posting randomly, without a goal and without a true understanding of what can be accomplished on any particular social channel.” According to her analysis, consistency (even more than frequency) is the key to making an impact with your social media activity. When, how often, and which types of content to post will depend on a combination of research and your own testing.
- For others, finding relevant conversations in a sea of irrelevant ones can feel like finding a needle in a haystack. This is where it helps for social media posting to become a contextualized part of your marketing, sales, and customer service strategies. (HubSpot customers: Social Inbox plugs your social media accounts into your contact database so you can see which folks engaging with your content are strangers, leads, and customers.)
What observations do you have from the results of our survey on overrated marketing tactics? Do you agree/disagree with our survey respondents? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
How to Make Better Facebook Video Ads
Have you tried Facebook video ads? Looking for better ways to connect with your Facebook audience? Small adjustments to the way you design and target your Facebook video ads can increase your engagement and conversions. In this article you’ll discover seven tips to improve your Facebook video ads. #1: Tailor to Audience Preferences Rather than create […]
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Social Media Examiner – Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
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How to Promote Your eBook With Social Media
Do you have an ebook that needs exposure? Want tips to promote your ebooks via social media? Social media can help you build visibility and generate leads with ebooks. In this article you’ll discover six ways to promote your ebook on social media. Why eBooks? The purpose of an ebook is to capture leads. Turn highly valuable […]
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Social Media Examiner – Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle
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VLC now looking for beta testers for its upcoming tvOS app
Just a week after Plex released its official app for the fourth-generation Apple TV, popular media player VLC has today announced that it is looking for beta testers for its app. Details on the app’s features are still sparse, but we can only assume that it will let you play all sorts of media formats on the device.
The VLC team originally teased its tvOS app back in September, offering up very few details other than confirmation that it was in fact coming. On iOS, VLC allows playback of a variety of different file formats. Files can be played from services like Dropbox, iCloud Drive, iTunes, GDrive, and more. It’s likely that the tvOS client will support many, if not all, of the same services as its iOS and Mac companions, making it a powerhouse of an app for media junkies.
VLC, like Plex, never released an app for Apple TV prior to the launch of the tvOS App Store. Plex on the fourth-gen Apple TV, released last week, allows the streaming of files from a local media server, as well as from channels like Ted, Revision3, YouTube, and Vimeo. Plex, while free download, is only fully functioning if you have a Plex Pass subscription. It’s unclear at this point if VLC will be free or paid.
If you want to signup to be a beta tester of the tvOS VLC app, head to this form and fill it out. The official release to the tvOS App Store is likely not far off either…
Filed under: Apple TV, Apps Tagged: Apple TV, Apps, streaming, VLC
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Fandango for iOS updated with Apple Pay integration
Popular movie ticket service Fandango has today updated its iOS with a highly requested feature. Bumping the app to version 7.1, Fandango for iOS has added support for Apple’s mobile payment solution, Apple Pay.
Fandango’s Apple Pay integration works just the same as it does with other third-party. When you go to purchase a ticket, you can now choose Apple Pay as a checkout option, significantly expediting the process.
Fandango’s addition of Apple Pay comes just a week after the iOS App Store added a new Shopping category to showcase apps like Fandango. Fandango’s support for Apple Pay has been a long time coming. Apple and Fandango have seemingly had a solid relationship thus far. Fandango powers database powers Siri’s support for movie times and reviews, so it’s odd that it took so long for the app itself to support Apple Pay. Fandango was also one of the first companies to release an Apple Watch app.
Fandango version 7.1 with Apple Pay support is available now on the App Store for free.
Filed under: Apps, iOS Tagged: Apple, Apps, Fandango, iOS, update
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Apple debuts iPad Pro ad called ‘A Great Big Universe’ ahead of Wednesday’s launch
Ahead of the device’s availability on Wednesday, Apple today has shared the first video advertisement for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. In a video entitled “A Great Big Universe” shared on its YouTube channel, Apple shows of the benefits of the device’s larger form factor, as well as apps that are optimized for it.
The ad is heavily focused on the galaxy and using the iPad Pro to explore it with apps like Sky Guide Pro and Star Walk. Apple also shows off the Split-screen multitasking capability of the device. “Introducing the biggest iPad ever,” is how Apple wraps up the ad.
There’s a great big universe in the new iPad Pro. It’s the largest iPad ever and takes your creativity and productivity to an epic scale.
iPad Pro goes on sale online this Wednesday and will be available in retail stores later this week. View the new ad below:
Filed under: iOS Devices Tagged: ad, Apple, iPad, iPad Pro, video
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Apple’s Angela Ahrendts talks her relationship w/ retail employees, Black Friday, & more
Ahead of her appearance at Bloomberg’s ‘Year Ahead’ business summit tomorrow, Apple’s SVP of Retail and Online Stores Angela Ahrendts has today made an appearance at Fast Company’s Innovation Festival in New York City. Ahrendts sat down with Fast Company Editor at Large Rick Tetzei to discuss her role at Apple since joining the company in 2014…
Ahrendts first noted that when she originally joined Apple, she spent the first 6 months on the job visiting the company’s retail locations in 40 markets and listening to the thoughts and opinions of retail employees. Ahrendts said that more than three billion people visit Apple.com’s online store, while 390 million people visit Apple’s retail locations each year. She noted that Jony I’ve designed the Apple Store tables and that they will never change, “no matter what.”
The Apple executive also added some color on the company’s decision to make itself part of social problems, something Tim Cook has done a lot of since he became CEO. Ahrendts pointed out that “Big isn’t good unless big does good,” meaning that if Apple isn’t voicing its opinion on important issues, then it’s not a good thing that the company is so large and powerful.
Ahrendts said that working at Apple allows her to do so much more than working at Burberry. At Burberry, Ahrendts said she was “touching one percent of the one percent,” while at Apple, she can reach a much larger audience and manage a much larger team of employees. Regarding her relationship with employees, Ahrendts said that there’s a “pretty flat organization” and that retail staffers often email her directly with feedback. Likewise, her “3 things in under 3 minutes” videos allow her to quickly connect with her 60k retail employees.
Ahrendts also noted that even part-time employees receive Apple stock because it’s easier and more cost effective to retain and make employees happy than it is to hire new ones. She also noted that Apple measures employee happiness three times per year. The executive said that Apple has an 81 percent retention rate when it comes to retail employees.
Regarding Black Friday, a retail tradition that Apple largely dropped last year, Ahrendts explained that Apple backed away from the annual tradition because “being good to your employees will always be good for business.”
Heading into the future, Ahrendts said Apple is currently halfway done with merging its retail locations with its online operations. Furthermore, China is still a huge market of interest for the company. Ahrendts noted that by 2025, twenty of the world’s top cities will be in China, hence why Apple is investing so much into the country.
Image via Harry McCracken
Filed under: AAPL Company
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Apple releases Xcode 7.1.1 w/ fixes for critical Interface builder, debugging, and UI testing issues
Three weeks after the release of Xcode 7.1 to developers, Apple today has released Xcode 7.1.1 to the Mac App Store. The update brings about a handful of under-the-hood fixes relating to the new features added with the more significant 7.1 update last month.
Apple says that Xcode 7.1.1 improves the overall stability of the app, making for an improved developer experience. Apple also says the update fixes “critical issues” in the Interface Builder, debugging, and UI testing.
Last month, Xcode 7.1 added support for the new Apple TV’s tvOS, as well as storyboard support for 3D Touch gestures, a new workflow to add a devices for development and testing, and a handful of other minor changes.
Xcode 7.1.1 is available now from the Mac App Store.
Filed under: Developers, Mac Tagged: Apple, Mac, update, Xcode
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