In the post-pandemic era, businesses aim to accelerate their efforts and investments toward digital transformation. The past years have been a wake-up call for all business leaders as the world witnessed the global impacts of a health crisis. Companies have quickly leveraged technology to communicate and do business remotely to thrive.
As a new year unfolds, leaders are still considering technology as a driver of business growth. Modern technology has been here since the discovery of the internet, rapidly evolving with better features and benefits, providing businesses with more powerful tools and solution options.
Learn what industry leaders have to share about leveraging technology to grow a business in 2023.
Virtual Tokens As Customer Rewards
Virtual tokens come as fungible and non-fungible. Non-fungible tokens are digital representations of assets, including collectibles, avatars, event tickets, and digital artwork. On the other hand, a prime example of fungible tokens is cryptocurrencies or digital currencies because all coins have the same value at any given time. Marketers can use these tokens as rewards in gamification and other marketing campaigns to attract more prospects and boost business sales.
Co-founder & CEO Jonathan Merry of Crypto Monday explained, “Many people find virtual tokens very rewarding, satisfying Socializers, Explorers, and Achievers of Bartle’s Gamer Psychology. Virtual tokens are great incentives when designing a game plan for a gamification marketing campaign. Understanding how tokens can positively affect the buyer journey in the sales funnel helps find value in Gabe Zichermann’s SAPS model, allowing marketers to determine what tasks appeal to customer advocates.”
Virtual tokens are popular among young audiences, such as Millennials and Gen Zs, because of these assets’ decentralized nature. These populations are more open to the digital rewards of brand marketing campaigns since they’ve grown with the existence of internet connectivity and mobile devices. But Baby Boomers are also adjusting and trying to understand the mechanism and benefits of digital tokens.
“Brands can leverage virtual tokens to incentivize new and loyal customers. Fungible and non-fungible tokens are quick to deliver, generating immediate customer satisfaction and action, such as signing up for a newsletter subscription to capture marketing leads and making a purchase.” Merry added.
Business Marketplaces As One-Stop Platforms
Adam Garcia, the founder of Stock Dork, shared his insights about creating one-stop platforms or marketplaces to grow businesses in 2023. “A marketplace is no longer only for business-to-customer (B2C) companies. We can expect more business-to-business (B2B) companies to create their version of a marketplace where interested stakeholders can gain knowledge about a product or service and make a purchase at their utmost convenience.”
Business marketplaces possess eCommerce features. People can find product catalogs, listings, promotions, blog articles, and customer support systems, such as online forms and chatbots, in place. Garcia added, “In 2023, companies will offer more segmented and specialized services to their customers through their marketplaces, highlighting their brands as frontiers to newly discovered solutions and business models. And that’s what innovation is all about, bringing forth higher revenues and business opportunities.”
AI To Support Human Product Recommendations
Product reviews are getting more relevant because of the increasing number of new products proliferating in the market nowadays. Artificial intelligence (AI) technology emerges to support human product recommendations, providing consumers with more accurate and measurable results. In return, businesses can reap fruitful rewards by adopting this technology.
According to Josh Tyler, the CEO of Tell Me Best, “AI has always been a very promising technology for businesses offering products, such as home appliances, gadgets, apparel, toiletries, etc. The most successful brands leverage AI to determine what their target audiences need and want. Because consumer needs quickly change, AI provides real-time data about changing shopping behaviors and product preferences, such as color, size, and price selections.”
Tyler further explained, “AI-powered software programs can also help businesses predict inventory, identifying in-demand products for prompt raw material procurement and item manufacturing. Waiting for end-of-week or monthly sales reports often leads to missed sales opportunities. AI technology can significantly boost sales, preventing the ‘out of stock’ status in eCommerce stores and brick-and-mortar businesses because of real-time data capturing and reporting.”
Outsourcing Technology For Success
Businesses don’t have to be highly concerned about embracing and implementing marketing technology in their campaigns. Outsourcing this technology to a third-party agency can help save time, effort, resources, and trouble.
Most often than not, business marketing teams have excessive workloads, encompassing lead generation, sustainability campaigns, co-marketing activities, events, offline product endorsements, etc. The challenge stems from task prioritization and ensuring each campaign runs smoothly to have successful outcomes.
Webserv CEO, Preston Powell, shared his expert insights about outsourcing marketing technology to grow a business this year. “Outsourcing your digital marketing to an agency is a practical option. Digital marketing agencies are always updated with emerging tools and technologies necessary for a business to stay ahead of the competition. Businesses can entrust their marketing campaigns to digital marketing agencies and focus more on other core operational aspects, such as finding new business opportunities through partnerships and acquisitions. By doing so, businesses can make well-thought, data-driven decisions and exceed their revenue goals.”
Outsourcing technology isn’t just for marketing. Businesses can also outsource accounting or billing, bookkeeping, and other administrative tasks. Aside from banking, finance, retail, manufacturing, and industrial companies, healthcare businesses can outsource some of their tasks to third-party agencies.
Ruth Novales of Fortis Medical Billing Professionals also shared her insights about outsourcing administrative tasks for healthcare businesses. She said, “Healthcare businesses can outsource medical transcription tasks to reputable agencies that comply with data privacy standards, like HIPPA. These agencies deploy the most advanced tools and techniques to help clients practice their healthcare profession with accurate data-driven results.”
Conclusion
Leveraging technology can help any business grow because of discoveries and opportunities. As technology continuously evolves, consumer needs also change. Therefore, businesses that align technological adoption with customers’ needs and preferences are in the best position to succeed because of speed, reliability, accuracy, scalability, flexibility, and security.
