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Grow your Business with Tech
David Hynd, Programme and Partnership Manager
www.heartofswgrowthhub.co.uk
Introducing the Growth Hub& Support for your Business
Helping you navigate the maze
Growth Hubs connect you to national & local business support schemes, grants and advice
Making local business support simpler & easier to access
✓A single point of access for businesses support
✓Introduce you to grants, advice, events
✓Extensive knowledge resources and a dedicated website
Growth Hub is…
• Free, impartial business enquiry service
• Advisers on hand to talk to you
• Workshops with delivery partners
• Factsheets on business topics
• Dedicated business support website
Heart of the South West Growth Hub
6,800 businesses
supported
Heart of the South West Growth Hub
98% Recommend
the Growth Hub
Heart of the South West Growth Hub
Let Bob tell you about the Growth Hub…
https://www.heartofswgrowthhub.co.uk/meet-bob/
✓ Spoke with Growth Hub Adviser
✓ Benefitted from fully-funded 1-to-1 Business Adviser session
✓ Received Business Review & follow-up support such as factsheets and information to support growth plans
Luxury Self-catering and B&B Accommodation
• Owners, Charlie and Julia Hutchings, first engaged with the Growth Hub by attending a tourism event
• Seeking ways to identify and reach new Customers
Larkbeare Grange
“I am better equipped to move forward with my growth aspirations for the business.” Julia Hutchings, Larkbeare Grange
From essential information about starting up to questions on day to day business operations… we’ve got a factsheet!
Worth a look….
• 1st October Inspire Launch event, Deer Park Country House, Honiton
• HMRC webinars throughout Sept & Oct, e.g. Making Tax Digital. See Growth Hub events calendar
• Torbay Business Growth Festival on Wed 9th October
Heart of the South West Growth Hub
o Fully funded Adviser visit and business review
o Access to factsheets, workshops, guides and business templates
Accutest International
A newly established company offering Industrial and Commercial drone inspection & surveys
Tel: 03456 047 047 www.heartofswgrowthhub.co.uk
Heart of the South West Growth Hub
Hannah’s Games
“If you don’t grow yourself, you are not going to grow your
business”
What’s new for 2020
Kate Doodson
Joint CEO Cosmic
@cosmickated
Big trends
1,000,000,000 TB in just a gram
5.4 zettabytes of digital data had been created by 2018, and it will boost to 54 zettabytes (ZB) by 2022.
How will the we store this data? All of the digital data that exists today could be stored in less than 20 grams of DNA.
DNA could last up to 2,000 years without deterioration.
A neural network that operates at the speed of light
The digital future?
CBI Stats
• Over the next 5 years, AI holds the top spot as the technology set to impact companies across all sectors.
• 42% of companies are planning to devote resource to adopting AI over the next 5 years• Main benefits = unmatched efficiency, smarter decisions and standing out from
competitors
Artificial intelligence for efficiency and smarter decisions
Blockchain for trust & transparency
• Blockchain technology was pioneered over nine years ago, but only in the last few years has it started to gain mainstream recognition.
• Over the next five years, it holds the number two spot as the technology set to influence businesses across all sectors.
• Main benefits = trust & transparency, unparalleled security and removes intermediaries
The Internet of Things – real time data, new income streams
• Over half of business (54%) are investing in IoT technology now.• Three quarters of businesses say IoT will be critical to their future
success. • Main benefits = real time intelligence, building closer relationships
with suppliers and customer and creating new revenue streams
So what should we focus on in 2020?
Key Facts
Globally the digital economy is rapidly growing
and it is forecast that it will account for 25% of
the world’s economy by 2020 – up from 15% in
2005.
Tech Nation Report 2018, May 2018
The Power of Voice
Voice Stats UK
Global sales of smart speakers now stands as at 100m, in the UK now 12.6million
30% of internet browsing will not involve a screen by 2020
Screen free searches deliver One Result audibly not 10 results on a screen
Gartner predicts good redesign for voice will increase e-commerce revenue by 30% by 2021
Current examples
Ocado’s voice grocery ordering system on Amazon Alexa that enables customers to add groceries to their shopping list by voice command.”
Order an Uber
Order a Domino’s pizza via voice
Apply to Leeds Beckett University
Voice Biometrics – authentication
Voice Assistant
● Discover places you can go within your budget: "Alexa,
ask KAYAK: Where can I go for £300?"
● Search flights, hotels and rental cars: "Alexa, ask KAYAK
to search for hotels in Barcelona."
● Access KAYAK's Flight Tracker to stay up to date on
expected arrivals and departures: "Alexa, ask KAYAK to
track a flight."
● "Alexa now has over 800 skills, and our customers are
loving the convenience of having a wide-range of third
party skills available to them.
Would an assistant help your business?
Quick books – Voice interface
You could simply ask a question like, how much money did I make in November?” When you ask that question, the system responds instantly by saying, hey, the revenue that you had in November was X pounds. Your products were A £. At the end, the AI-powered assistant suggests further questions to ask as follow-ups, which promotes continued interaction.
Voice interface innovation is organic, transformational, and core to the Quickbooks product, he says. Since its introduction, the company has continued to add more and more capability, so that it gets smarter and smarter — a user can ask a question like, who owes me money, sending the assistant into all of the current unpaid invoices and returning names and cash amounts, and it’s one of the biggest requests customers make, he says.
Customers can also go beyond queries about their financial situation or how much money they made to ask questions they would normally have to contact a customer call center for, such as instructions on using Quickbooks features.
OK Alexa….
In-office support
‘track my time’, outlook calendar reminders
Client/Customer support skill?
Where’s the nearest? Who’s the best?
What should we be doing in 2020?
Develop featured blocks of content - The average voice search result is about 29 words long, featured snippet – also called position zero, answer box, or quick answers
Optimise website for voice search – write new content in spoken language
Think about what customers ask but don’t search
Improve local search visibility
Have a go!
Test out Alexa Blueprints
Test your services through Voice
Chatbots for Customers
A chatbot is a piece of software that conducts a conversation.
Chatbots, fuelled by AI, are becoming a viable customer service channel. The
best ones deliver a customer experience (CX) in which customers cannot tell if
they are communicating with a human or a computer.
Around 46% reduction in costs expected
Chatbots as primary customer service tool
Chatbots
Sina deals with
● Travel times
● Travel duration
● Destinations
● Departure airport
● Characteristics of hotels
● Beach proximity
● Child care and wellness
Meet Sina - HLX.com AI
Sina draws on 1.5 billion HLX travel
components - and then the each
presented three best package deals
with discounted prices, which can be
booked immediately.
Margot the Wine Chatbot (Lidl)
Whole Foods
Whole Foods’ Facebook Messenger Bot connects with users by providing recipes, products, and cooking inspiration
Presenting filters and options for different types of food, including international cuisines with each message, Whole Foods makes it easy for users to narrow in on the kind of recipe they’re looking for.
Once enough filters have been selected, the bot presents a link to a specific recipe that directs users to the company’s website.
Rather than rely on direct visitors, Whole Foods’ chatbot drives traffic to their site from a platform where people spend — on average — 50 minutes a day.
Emoji responses? if sent a pizza emoji, the bot returns a pizza
recipe.
What’s App and Messenger
1.3 billion people use WhatsApp and 1.2 billion people use
Facebook Messenger every month.
Share the hotel’s WhatsApp number,
● encourage them to add you as a contact● allow guests to communicate with the hotel and make
requests prior to arrival ● Use as concierge service during their stay
‘If you need help with transport or dinner on your first night, please let us know. Our WhatsApp details are below so feel free to get in touch. We’d love to hear from you! Simply follow the instructions below and send us a message.’
WhatsApp or Messenger Can connect to email and CRM
Chatfuel is the world’s leading chatbot platform for Facebook Messenger.
46% of all Messenger bots run on Chatfuel
ManyChat is Built for Sales and Marketing
Sell products, book appointments, nurture leads, capture contact info, and build relationships all through Messenger.
Build a Bot in Minutes
Start with a template focused on your business or build your own bot in minutes with our simple drag-and-drop interface.
Get More Out of the Tools You Already Use
Whether it’s Shopify, Google Sheets, MailChimp, HubSpot, ConvertKit, or Zapier, ManyChat connects to the tools you already use.
Bag a Chat
Integrate Chatting Apps to Your Business
Connect with customers on popular Instant messengers
Integration APIs
Connects to In-house CRM & Website using API
Integrating with back office software
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/289788
10 best chatbots for your business
What’s your action plan?
Start small - Plug and Play with Messenger for out of hours responses
Review website need for Chatbot – test and try software
Review customers key questions and look at FAQs
Reflect on integration opportunities with your CRM, ZenDesk/FreshDesk or other customer support tools
Watch out for innovative uses and trial them yourself
Libra or Scorpio?
Cryptocurrency becoming mainstream?
Libra is a global currency and financial infrastructure - a digital asset built by
Facebook and powered by a new Facebook-created version of
blockchain, the encrypted technology used by bitcoin and other
cryptocurrencies.
To send funds to your Calibra wallet, Facebook will allow you to select from a
list of partner payment providers, such as MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, and
Stripe.
What else?
Aims to support all, but particularly the ‘unbanked’ 20% of US are
unbanked, 73% of SE Asia too
Smart contract coding is done through Move programming language.
Any developer can build apps that work with it using the Move coding
language.
Facebook won’t fully control Libra, but instead get just a single vote in
its governance like other founding members of the Libra Association.
Libra comes from the word for a Roman unit of weight measure
Libra’s nodes will be only run from the servers of the Libra Association’s
members – that is: Facebook, Uber, Paypal and the others. The
companies collectively will manage it – not one single organisation.
The aim is to move to decentralized over 5 years.Read the Whitepaper: https://libra.org/en-US/white-paper/
Libra as a digital identity
Can be used as a Smart Contract and Identity too
“An additional goal of the association is to develop and promote an open
identity standard. We believe that decentralized and portable digital
identity is a prerequisite to financial inclusion and competition.”
Blockchain 2020?
When is it likely to impact on my business?
Do we need to start to look at coding skills for MOVE?
Should we explore Libra for payments?
Should I ask my web developer about accepting Libra and other Cryptocurrency payments?
Will staff expect to be paid in Libra?
What risks do I need to be aware of?
Libra questions
Focus on SEO
Check your site for SEO issues
Are dead ”zombie” pages being indexed?
Are there 404s, or broken links on your website?
Is your internal link structure organized correctly?
Can your page speed performance be improved?
Use a tool such as – Uber Suggest
neilpatel.com/ubersuggest
Topics over keywords
Google is now moving towards looking at topics over keywords - They want to see that you are fully covering a topic in order to rank you.
EAT: Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness
One page on a subject won’t make you an expert. Start to split down your expertise into smaller chunks and a broader range
What tool can help?
Clearscope will analyse the search results and give you suggestions on the types of keywords and content you need to include in your page to make sure it’s fully optimized to rank.
Create content under a similar theme
– and link it to each other
Can I Rank?
https://www.canirank.com/
Highlights the missing opportunities and places you can improve
Updating Content vs new content
Updating content works better that creating new content, in terms of traffic gains. You need to keep updating blogs to keep your rankings
Update your page once per yearIrrespective of industry, change happens every year. To maintain your
evergreen content, update the following items to remain relevant and authoritative.
• Page Title and Meta Description• Remove outdated, irrelevant strategies or links• Update content from last year that is still relevant• Write new content that happened since last year• Link out to new research published by authoritative sources• Link out to original articles and case studies your business published• Add new rich media (videos and embedded images work the best)
Update the Publication DateBefore you hit publish, relaunch your content by updating the publication
date. This way, Google’s crawler will know to re-crawl and re-index your webpage. This way your content will remain at the top of Google’s Search Engine Results Page year after year.
Zero Click SEO
Featured Snippets
Why is this important?
Pushing Organic clicks down the page - ranking for a featured snippet is so much more helpful and effective for driving visitors to your site than ranking for #1.
Highest position without advertising
Direction of travel with voice and mobile
less focus on keywords and more attention on user questions, insights and the intentions behind every keyword
What can we do?
Search queries with the following words have a
better chance of getting featured:
• Recipe
• Best
• Vs.
• Make
• Definition
Types of featured snippets
There are three major types of featured snippets:
• Paragraph – most popular
• List
• Table
How can we do it?
• Find out what snippets are working well? Check out SerpStat (serpstat.com) as it can show you which keywords bring up featured snippets
• What questions are people actually trying to find answers for? If a snippet doesn’t appear, check out ideas under the “People also ask” section
Visit websites such as ‘answer the public’ (https://answerthepublic.com) to get ideas
• Do you rank well enough? Check how popular you rank for a particular phrase YOU need to rank pretty highly on the phrase
• Create new area on your site - How-to or Q&A section to your website, or how to library
• Include visuals and video (write up transcript as 3 simple steps)
• Optimum word count is 52 words long!
• Use Step 1, Rule 1 etc format use H1,2,3, tags
• And if you earn a position zero spot, it might not last forever if Google decides that another page is better suited to rank for it.
Google - creating higher order knowledge from Maps
The popular dishes feature is powered by a machine
learning algorithm that matches dish names, provided by
Google Maps users, with relevant photos and reviews. This
creates a handy arrangement of a restaurant’s most
popular meals right at your fingertips in Google Maps.
Simply pull up a restaurant on Google Maps to find its
popular dishes in the overview tab. Feeling extra peckish?
Dive into the menu tab to scroll through all the most-
talked about meals, and tap on a popular dish to explore
reviews and photos.
Keep plugging gaps in Google My Business!
Google Maps adds dish-covery to the menu. New Menu tab in Maps
Google Maps –Augmented reality
Google releases AR in Google Maps
Continue to focus on Google My Business
Social
Privacy and security
Privacy has always been the main concern on social media and the internet as a whole.
Customers want clarity and transparency from all businesses
• Clear statements – how we store, process and dispose of data
• Contextualised statements during sign up or purchase – why we need to
collect data
• Use your data privacy as a selling point
• Clarity and transparency when things go wrong
Focus on Instagram
By 2020, we’ll see the increased dominance of Instagram, especially among older demographics.
There are more 45 to 54 year-olds using Instagram than there are 13 to 17 year olds.
Instagram Stories – show your everyday activities
Instagram Highlights - Stories Highlights allows you to group old stories together in a new section that sits below your Instagram bio.
Story Highlights lets you share up to 100 photos or videos you've shared to your story in the past.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/what-are-instagram-highlights/
Stories and highlights
Other Instagram features
Comply with our merchant agreement and commerce policies. Your business comply with our merchant agreement and commerce policies
Have an Instagram business account. Your Instagram account must be converted into a business account.
Have a connected Facebook Page. Your Instagram business profile must be connected to a Facebook Page. Facebook Pages with the Message to Buy payment option will need to delete and create a new Shop with another payment option before they can use shopping on Instagram. Please note that country or age restrictions on your Facebook Page will not carry over to your Instagram account.
Primarily sell physical goods. Your Instagram account must be a business that primarily sells physical goods. We are continuing to test this feature and hope to expand availability to more accounts in the near future.
Have your business account connected to a Facebook Catalog. Your business account must be connected to a Facebook catalog. This can be created and managed on Catalog Manager or Business Manager on Facebook, or through Shopify or BigCommerce platforms.
Facebook business page has a shop and uploaded inventory
Instagram shop
Swipe up!
Swipe up with stories
The “Swipe up” tool is a feature that is available with the Instagram Stories. This method of posting allows you to display short videos that users can receive in their daily feeds, and which may summarize or highlight your latest activity.
Creates a call to action and prolongs their interaction
More information about yoru products/services or offers
Swipe up – 10,000 followers
Visual Product discovery
Pinterest Lens
EasyJet Discovery – Look and Book
Snapchat – see snap, sale
Amazon product scan
“a lot of the future of search is going to be about pictures instead of keywords.”
Image Optimisation
Ensure images are
• Tagged correctly
• Saved with descriptive titles
• Make use of Alt Tags
Optimise images for mobile search
Want to know more?
Sign up to https://www.heartofswgrowthhub.co.uk/gsp-apply/
up to 9 hours of support
digital workshops & guidance
Thank you
@cosmickated
