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Users spend an average of 5.59 seconds looking at a website’s written content. I don’t know about you, but it seems like there is hardly enough time to gain users’ interest, let alone relay the information you want to share — and the information they want to find.
However, following best practices, there is no reason to bombard users with an avalanche of information when they land on your homepage. While there may be a lot of great information about your business, putting it in their faces when they arrive can have the inverse effect, making users feel overwhelmed and pushing them to leave the site.
So, what is the alternative? Thoughtfully crafted messages and content aligned with the customer journey and revealed through a slow, strategic drip known as progressive disclosure.
Progressive disclosure is about strategically revealing the information a user wants or needs at the precise moment the customer wants or needs it (rather than throwing it at them upfront). This is essentially a strategic approach to planning and releasing content throughout the customer journey to maximize engagement and move a customer through the conversion funnel.
Here’s an example: If you have a product-heavy website, the navigation should direct the user through a seamless navigation. If the navigation is designed strategically to align with the customer journey, then each click is a point on the path of progressive disclosure. As users move around the site, they will slowly but surely learn more about the products and services and find the information they need. This is precisely why websites use a thoughtful navigation system based on logic and integrated into the information architecture that outlines the content and where it should be placed within the site.
The simple answer is that this process is customer-centric. It focuses on what customers want to accomplish rather than what you, the business owner, want to share.
In addition, progressive disclosure accomplishes the following:
Related: 7 Ecommerce Customer Experience Strategies for Effective Branding in 2024
If you want to rework your website or consider how your content is aligned with your customers, here are a few considerations that will help ensure you are applying progressive disclosure principles:
Applying progressive disclosure isn’t just about withholding information; it’s about crafting a captivating narrative that unfolds as the user interacts with your brand. Applying this approach can foster trust, increase engagement, and ultimately create satisfied customers.
Remember, we’re not just selling products or services; we’re guiding users on a journey, and every step along the way matters. By unveiling the right information at the right time, we transform their experience from overwhelming to empowering, paving the way for sustainable success.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
As someone who has been involved in search engine optimization (SEO) for nearly a decade now, I know how important it is to track metrics. While not every metric has the same value, it is essential to keep your finger on the pulse of your online performance.
From my observations and practical experience, there are a few SEO metrics that really matter in 2024. Specifically, these can be divided into on-page and off-page ones. Nevertheless, they will be crucial for your concerted efforts to ensure you skyrocket your SEO performance.
So, without further ado, here are the metrics I measure and keep tabs on and recommend for highly effective SEO endeavors.
Related: Experts Share The 5 Things You Need to Understand About SEO in 2024
I’d like to kick off by mentioning the importance of keyword research and analysis. This should be the foundation of any SEO strategy. However, choosing the right keywords can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack.
This is where using the right tools comes into play. And once you have these tools at your fingertips, you need to use them wisely. Whether you are creating a sales page or a blog article, you must consider your users’ search intent when looking for the right keywords.
A sales page with informational search intent keywords will flop. The same is true for a blog article with keywords that have a commercial search intent. Match the right keywords with your specific content type. For example, a commercial page should have keywords with commercial search intent and a blog article should have keywords with informational search intent.
After you have narrowed down your list of keywords, created your content and published it, you need to track performance. Analyzing keyword data is essential to inform your SEO strategies. Measure aspects such as search engine rankings, keyword rankings, overall organic traffic and other criteria to ensure you are on the right path.
The impact of page speed on SEO is huge. Many, if not most, online users feel a sense of frustration when they click on a page and it takes more than three seconds to open. In our world of instant gratification, people want fast-loading websites that are easy to navigate. Wondering how to optimize your page speed performance? A few tips worth considering include:
Compress your images
Avoid hosting videos locally
Use a quality hosting plan
Avoid too many animations
Minimize external resources
Minimize HTTP requests
Enable GZIP compression
Utilize accelerated mobile pages
Reduce the number of redirects
A related page speed factor is ensuring your website is mobile-friendly. Yes, our world is becoming increasingly mobile-first, and if your website doesn’t flow and show smoothly on mobile, you’ve just frustrated your users and lost them to the competition. So, basically, with these strategies, you can keep your website loading speed low and watch user satisfaction increase as you track this metric.
Related: 8 Ways to Make Your Website Faster (and Why It Is Critical to Your Business)
Measuring content quality and relevance can be a tough nut to crack. Despite this, it’s still important to do so. There are several metrics in this space that I always keep an eye out for. These include:
Traffic
Bounce rate
Dwell time
Social shares
Backlinks (for more on this, see my discussion below)
Conversions
Revenue and/or return on investment
Every one of these metrics, when looked at as a whole, will tell you whether your content resonates with your target audience. Another aspect I consider in this regard is not only publishing fresh content but also updating older articles to ensure that my website or my clients’ websites perform optimally at any given period of time. Bear in mind that SEO is a long-term game. It’s an ongoing process that requires continued and dedicated efforts for overall success.
And now I come to the crown jewel of SEO: link building. Getting backlinks to your website from other authoritative websites has been described by many in the industry as securing a vote of confidence in the quality of your online presence. But there are good backlinks and bad backlinks. That’s why key metrics to monitor when it comes to your backlink profile should include:
When it comes to how to build high-quality backlinks, there are many strategies that you can follow. However, I recommend the skyscraper approach, resource link exchanges and a few subcategories of outreach such as guest posting. Ultimately, you want your online presence to dominate. And to achieve this, you need to show that you are credible, authoritative and importantly — trustworthy.
Measuring conversion rates involves a bit of an analytical approach. In a nutshell, it’s a numbers game. However, measuring the user experience goes beyond numbers and ventures over into the qualitative sphere. Both of these metrics are important for SEO. And while conversion rates can be easily measured by the number of new customers your business has acquired, your users’ experience can be measured by using the following approaches:
Ultimately, when it comes to boosting your SEO efforts in order to drive conversions through a great user experience, you will want to implement A/B testing and carry out different experiments to ensure that your approach is as refined as possible.
Related: User Experience Is the Most Important Metric You Aren’t Measuring
And that’s it, folks: the key SEO metrics that matter in 2024. I can’t overemphasize the importance of tracking and optimizing your SEO metrics for your entrepreneurial success. After all, if you have an online presence, you need to build, nurture and grow it to reap the benefits.
With this in mind, if you haven’t yet started tracking some of these metrics, it’s important to do so while coupling the metrics measurements with a combination of the right SEO strategies and approaches. The rewards for your business and online presence will be phenomenal.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
The term small and medium businesses (SMBs) belies the sizable contribution these organizations make to economies and employment markets. According to the World Economic Forum, “Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which represent around 90% of all firms globally, provide roughly 70% of all employment and, by some estimates, contribute to up to 70% of global GDP.” They are also embedded in their communities, delivering innovative products and services that play a crucial role in accelerating economic development.
However, doing all of this while remaining competitive requires SMBs to perform a fine balancing act between three key goals. They must accelerate speed to market for their products and services, they must build customer trust and at the same time, they must work to reduce costs. So, how are these small but mighty SMBs doing it? And — more importantly — how can they make it easier and do it better? The answer, supported by a recent report from Accenture, lies in adopting cloud services and technologies.
Related: 4 Reasons Business Leaders Need to Accelerate Cloud Adoption
The report estimates that by 2030, cloud-enabled SMBs in healthcare, education and agriculture will have unlocked $161 billion in productivity gains. These cloud-enabled SMBs will support 95.8 million jobs, equivalent to 8% of the total employment on average across the 12 countries studied. Meanwhile, SMBs in these sectors in the U.S. stand to gain a predicted $79.8 billion, a 26% increase in current productivity benefits. Within cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are expected to have the most significant effect: 78% of businesses surveyed identified these technologies as the most significant in creating societal impacts in 2030.
Many businesses have already migrated services and computing to the cloud. Approximately 63% of all U.S. businesses (and 44% globally) now utilize cloud technology. Most of these will be large enterprises with the digital savvy and resources to make the move. This means there are many SMBs that are, therefore, missing out. First, on being able to achieve that fine balancing act between the three key goals. Second, on the opportunity to build on current achievements and continue to spearhead positive change across communities and economies.
By utilizing on-demand services and products, SMBs will gain access to the kind of tools and approaches historically restricted to large enterprises. This means they can capitalize on emerging trends by being first to market with new products (addressing key goal number one). They can also deliver secure, high-quality products and services, protect customer data and provide reliable customer support to help build customer trust (addressing key goal number two). Finally, as a result of introducing more efficient processes and better resource allocation and supply chain management, they can streamline operations and ensure they’re financially resilient (key goal number three).
Related: How to Revolutionize Your Supply Chain by Harnessing the Power of Smart Technologies
The OECD’s definition of cloud adoption levels includes basic adoption, such as web-based email services or cloud-based storage solutions, and intermediate adoption, such as customer relationship management or enterprise resource planning tools. The average rate of basic adoption in the countries surveyed in Accenture’s report stands at 44%, and that of intermediate adoption hovers at 19%. There is clearly a large proportion of SMBs that are missing out, yet it’s in the adoption of advanced technologies that the greatest untapped gains lie. Within this third level of cloud adoption, the OECD includes the likes of AI and ML tailored for sophisticated tasks. The average advanced cloud adoption rate is currently 13%, yet 78% of respondents to the report identified AI and ML as the technologies that will have the most transformative impact on societies.
To realize that vision, this gap must be closed. As it becomes so, what can we expect to see and experience in critical sectors by 2030? In education, SMBs could help make learning more accessible and provide personalized content and individualized feedback to students. In healthcare, they could enable more medics to analyze results more accurately and synthesize high volumes of data for R&D: generative AI is expected to play a role in the development of up to 30% of all new drugs by 2025. In farming, we would see a greater uptake of AI and ML technologies for precision, data-driven agriculture, which uses fewer resources and yields greater results.
This vision and the prospect of adopting cloud technologies will be significant for many SMBs that will understandably want to start small. Fortunately, the nature of the cloud supports this. Instead of investing heavily in new infrastructure, SMBs can use cloud services and virtualized resources on a pay-as-you-go model. Shifting from traditional fixed costs to a variable costs model means organizations only pay for what they use — which can be scaled up and down to meet demands – reducing running costs and freeing up capital. Starting small also means working with a cloud services provider that understands the needs of each SMB it works with and offers tailored support and training.
Of course, just because we start small doesn’t mean we can’t think big. In terms of migrating to new cloud technologies, SMBs should adopt a whole-of-business cloud migration strategy and draw on the knowledge and expertise of other organizations that have already made the move. For businesses operating in any market, these benefits will be attractive — especially to their bottom line. Finally, achieving this vision for 2030 can’t be attained without the buy-in of other markets and sectors of society. Moving towards this goal — and leveraging the cloud technologies required means continuing coordination between governments, educators and other industries.
The first question Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had to answer at the AI chipmaker’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday was how Nvidia handles rising competition.
Though Nvidia indisputably leads the AI chip market, with more than 80% of market share, competition has intensified. Established tech giants like Intel and AMD and rising startups like Etched, Cerebras, and D-Matrix are all vying for room in a highly lucrative space worth billions.
About 40% of Nvidia’s revenue is believed to come from just four companies: Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet. All of those companies have the means to fully develop AI chips on their own one day.
Related: Nvidia Long-Term Employees ‘Semi-Retired’ Multimillionaires
So Nvidia’s current customers could one day be its biggest competitors.
Huang addressed the threat of competition without calling out any rival in particular on Wednesday. In response to a shareholder question, he said Nvidia’s strategy was to make AI chips that have the “lowest total cost of ownership.”
Those five words don’t necessarily mean that Nvidia’s chips, which cost upwards of $30,000 apiece, are the cheapest on the market.
Instead, Nvidia’s chips could present a “lowest total cost” overall when potential customers consider performance, the cost of running the chips, and their wider reach.
“The NVIDIA platform is broadly available through every major cloud provider and computer maker, creating a large and attractive install base for developers and customers, which makes our platform more valuable to our customers,” Huang said, per CNBC.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. (Photo by SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images)
Nvidia’s chips have been around for 30 years, but until recently, they were used as graphics cards.
Huang believed that the chips could do more. In 2016, he asked his team to use the chips to build an AI server, which ended up being as big as a briefcase and cost $129,000 to make. He then hand-delivered the server to OpenAI as a gift.
Tens of thousands of Nvidia’s chips now power OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Huang emphasized at the meeting that Nvidia had a head start on AI chips because it started investing in the technology a decade ago, pouring billions of dollars into the effort and adding thousands of engineers to work on it.
That first-mover advantage has paid off. Nvidia is now one of the world’s most valuable companies, hitting a $3.338 trillion valuation last week.
Related: Amazon Joins Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet in $2T Club
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Reveals His Competition Strategy Read More »
Walgreens is the latest chain to face mass closures.
On Thursday, Walgreens announced that it would be closing a “significant” number of underperforming stores across the country.
“The current pharmacy model is not sustainable,” CEO Tim Wentworth told investors on an earnings call. “Changes are imminent.”
Related: Walgreens’ Battle Over High-Tech Cooler Doors Heats Up
Wentworth said that it would “take a hard look” at 25% of its stores over the next three years with the potential for closure, which means that 2,150 stores could be up for shutting down.
Walgreens currently operates 8,600 stores.
“The consumer is absolutely stunned by the absolute prices of things, and the fact that some of them may not be inflating doesn’t actually change their resistance to the current pricing,” Wentworth told investors. “So we’ve had to get really keen, particularly in discretionary things.”
Walgreens Boots Alliance stock plummeted over 24% in a 24-hour period upon the release of its fiscal Q3 2024 earnings, which reported $36.4 billion in revenue.
The company revealed that it was hit with a $2.7 billion bill by the IRS after the agency conducted audits and reportedly found issues with Walgreens’ transfer pricing between 2014 and 2017.
Related: Walgreens Unveils New CEO, $1 Billion Cost-Cutting Plan
“The Company intends to vigorously defend its position on the transfer pricing matter through the IRS’s administrative appeals office and, if necessary, judicial proceedings and is confident in its ability to prevail on the merits,” Walgreens said via the filing at the time.
As of Thursday afternoon, Walgreens Boots Alliance was down nearly 59% year over year.
Walgreens to Shutter a ‘Significant’ Number of Stores Read More »
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Out-of-the-box thinkers in marketing have attracted massive media attention throughout the years, creating masterpieces that have captivated audiences and kept the public talking about brands and their products. While traditional marketing strategies are always reliable, non-traditional campaigns can deliver a much higher reward when brands use them correctly.
Every once in a while, a company turns a creative idea into the next hot topic for online chatter and workplace conversation. These viral campaigns teach us that unconventional approaches can amass media attention quickly and for many years after!
Related: From Zero to Viral — 4 Marketing Campaigns That Shook the Web in 30 Days
Creativity mixed with tongue-in-cheek humor for this viral campaign orchestrated by one of the biggest names in food products. With their new “insurance policy,” Heinz promises to help customers who are coping with ketchup-related accidents by turning every mess into an opportunity.
It is no surprise that this product offering went viral. It addresses a common pain point for Heinz consumers while enhancing the customer experience, and it presents a hilarious solution to keep people talking. Every customer base has relatable industry problems. Offering innovative solutions with an unexpected twist can make your brand the obvious choice over competitors.
British humor is known to be just a little racy to garner a few laughs from an audience, which is why Manscaped asked British comedian Charlie Partridge to play the star in their Lawn Mower 4.0 Snooker commercial. In this viral commercial, Partridge delivers a collection of double entendres aimed to make light of the brand’s personal care products.
The personal care product industry is known for using indirect marketing ploys to address private matters, but this commercial kept audiences talking and certainly demonstrated a clear understanding of its target audience. The commercial’s clever script shows how beneficial it can be for modern brands to push professionalism aside and be brazen with their audiences in today’s bold world. It might not be the right fit for every potential consumer, but it will certainly generate buzz and encourage sharing, which can help your brand secure more sales.
Related: This Is the Unconventional Marketing Tactic Small Businesses Need to Try
First founded in 2005, Refinery29 has spent nearly two decades centering itself as an authority in pop culture and public relevancy. Their 29Rooms experience was a series of events designed to combine the traditional party scene with a viral social media focus, further establishing the brand as a clear leader in all things cool.
At the traveling experiences, Refinery29 prioritized entertainment and art, as well as politics and style. Attendees were able to see captivating displays from talented modern artists, catering to the growing interest in smaller creators while providing a high-quality backdrop for viral social media content.
The exhibition drew attention to the Refinery29 brand, all while helping its audience celebrate shared spaces again after a challenging year of pandemic isolation. Marketing events can be standalone events, but Refinery29 shows us that more complex events that span across dates and locations can be a worthy investment that facilitates a deeper connection with an audience. These events bring people together and keep their focus on your brand, especially when the events are culturally relevant and designed for a social-media-obsessed world.
Known for helping its customers reach new heights, Red Bull garnered massive media attention with the Red Bull Stratos project, which centered around a historic high-altitude jump with Austrian parachutist Felix Baumgartner, who leaped into the air from over 120,000 feet using special equipment and a one-of-a-kind suit to keep him safe in an otherwise unwelcoming environment.
Throughout the years, Red Bull has gained further attention from the media for this stunt and even captured public interest again with its 2018 release of Mission to the Edge of Space, a documentary that offers an inside look into the project. Repurposing successful marketing campaigns to generate new interest and capture more attention down the line can be a powerful move, allowing your brand to do more with less.
The Lululemon brand has always had a mix of media attention, receiving both praise from customers and criticism for a lack of inclusivity throughout the years. In 2019, the brand took a big step forward with the help of creatives from Working Not Working to craft an inclusive new campaign that put aside traditional marketing and instead allowed voices from marginalized communities to be heard in public spaces and online.
The “Proud & Present” campaign was centered around honesty and offered a distinctly human spotlight. Brands can learn a lot from this campaign. Not only did the campaign creatively address one of the primary criticisms that had plagued the company in recent years, but it also showed a nuanced understanding of the public interest in raw, real content.
In an age where people share their truths in posts online every day, the average consumer is less interested in perfectly tailored marketing content and more interested in content that reflects an understanding of the human experience and consumer needs. Placing humanity at the center of your brand campaign can help your audience feel seen and heard, generating deeper levels of trust and increasing brand loyalty.
Related: 10 Genius Marketing Campaigns That Went Viral
Marketing is a year-round commitment for brands, and in many cases, traditional marketing is a fine match. However, unconventional campaigns can attract a lot of publicity and keep talking for years, even if all that is left of them is a YouTube clip or a social media post.
Generating buzz is much easier when marketers give the public something to buzz about, and a less traditional approach is an excellent way to capture their attention and imagination.
4 Unconventional Marketing Campaigns That Demanded Media Attention Read More »
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Marketing today encompasses a dizzying array of techniques, including market research, branding, inbound and outbound marketing, search engine optimization, content creation, influencer campaigns and more.
Marketing may seem complex, especially for an executive without direct exposure to their marketing team. However, there is a simple basis of all marketing which the American Marketing Association calls the “four Ps:” product, place, price and promotion.
Related: 6 Innovative Marketing Strategies Designed for Startups
You believe you have invented (or acquired) the best thing since sliced bread. But, before launching a business, use market research to determine whether there is an actual market for it and whether that market is prepared to pay its price. According to the Small Business Association (SBA), “market research blends consumer behavior and economic trends to confirm and improve your business idea.”
Market research can be conducted by hiring a specialized company, engaging with an online platform or a DIY alternative like Survey Monkey. Here is what you need to answer:
Once it’s clear that there will be a robust audience for the product or service you intend to offer, it’s time to drill down to the next “P” — place.
Unless the business you’re running is focused on a large ecommerce platform like Amazon, the right business location is important. For my company, having launched our brick-and-mortar franchised restaurant as a food truck in Miami, we knew where our customers were and that determined our first physical location — but our experience is not the standard for every business.
Place will revolve around the type of business and the results of your market research. Here are some examples of “places:”
Related: 10 Things to Consider When Choosing a Location for Your Business
Without an advanced business degree, it can be difficult to analyze all of the factors involved in pricing. From solely a marketing standpoint, knowing the economic status of the target consumer is of primary importance. Simply put, how much will the market bear?
Containing costs may be required to gain a larger profit while keeping the pricing pegged to the marketplace. Here are a few tips:
Now for the fun part. Promotion is where creativity achieves maximum impact. The fact is: “Brands that are willing to take risks and think outside of the box are often the ones that stand out in a crowded market.”
When you think about promotion, keychains with business logos, billboards and signage in general may come to mind. While these can be excellent promotional vehicles, there are newer and more exciting options. Consider exploring how your business might benefit from pop-up locations in addition to your main venue, or offer car magnets to customers and let them be “brand ambassadors.” Social media presence is also essential (and a whole topic of its own).
Here are a few specific ideas that can help the business raise its profile a few notches:
1. Giveaways
Consider giving away an item that represents the brand. In our case, that’s a taco giveaway, but it could even be just a lanyard with your logo. Giveaways should always be a line item on the marketing budget with advertising and public relations because nothing engenders goodwill like freebies.
Here are four reasons why giveaways work:
Giveaways — whether an actual product, a promotional item or offering free services — boost community engagement, brand awareness, rapport and social media buzz. Always leverage social channels to communicate the giveaway highlights before, during and after a campaign.
Related: How a Contest or Giveaway Can Attract Business Prospects
2. Guerrilla campaigns
Many businesses underestimate the value of a properly executed guerrilla marketing campaign. But first, what exactly is a guerilla marketing campaign? According to the Entrepreneur Small Business Encyclopedia, it means going after the conventional goals of profits, sales and growth by using unconventional means, such as expanding offerings during economic downtimes to inspire customers to purchase increased quantities.
It’s important to develop a campaign that leverages guerrilla marketing tactics in a way that you can measure its impact by applying a combination of quantitative and qualitative metrics. Here’s how:
Here’s a personal example: A customer ordered food from my restaurant delivered to her home, and when it arrived, raccoons stole it. She recorded the incident and posted it on social media, and it got picked up by local news. We worked to get the video uploaded to some of the bigger meme accounts on Instagram and Facebook, and it got more attention than any print ad or TV commercial. All it cost us was a $100 e-gift card to the customer to compensate for her stolen food.
3. “Old school” PR stunts
PR stunts used to have a bad rap, but they’re becoming more common again — as long as you’re ethical about it. A PR stunt can often be an easy-to-implement, unconventional marketing strategy. Before we became a brick-and-mortar restaurant, we operated a food truck. We got friends and family to stand in line throughout the day to create the perception of a busy food truck. Promoting small crowds swarming the truck attracted even bigger crowds.
Eventually, the number of fans enjoying the food truck got so large that we had to open a physical location — then another and another. Now we’ve become a successful franchise business.
Related: Does PR Actually Help Increase Sales? Yes — Just Do It Right and Be Patient
4. Strategic alliances
Look for businesses that are aligned, but do not compete with your product or service, to create cross-promotions. For example, seek a partnership with a local sports team. Studies show that 66% of “forever” sports fans take action after seeing a brand’s sponsorship.
To the four Ps of marketing (product, place, price and promotion), I would like to emphasize one “C” — creativity. Creativity is key in marketing, but don’t get too carried away: Always keep the customer in mind and make everything you do relevant to the brand.
4 Tried-and-True Ways to Better Market Your Business Read More »
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
One of my favorite brainstorming frameworks is the SCAMPER technique. It stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse. Advertising executive Alex Faickney Osborn developed the original principles in 1953. Then, Bob Eberle turned them into a memorable acronym and expanded on the concept in 1971 when he wrote the book, Scamper: Games for Imagination Development.
Many people believe that creative thinking is an innate ability. That may be true for some people, but the rest of us can be creative too, with tools like SCAMPER. Let’s dive in.
Related: 5 Ways to Transform Your Next Work Brainstorming Session Into Something Really Great
Before you get started, define the problem clearly. You can apply SCAMPER to products, processes, ideas or anything else you want to improve upon. You can even use it to reveal new opportunities to compete. To illustrate the technique, let’s consider the shift from cars powered by combustion engines to electric vehicles (EVs) as we explore each component of the SCAMPER technique.
The first component of SCAMPER is Substitute. Look at your idea and break it down into its parts. What people, materials, processes or other elements is it comprised of? What people could you substitute into the process to get a different outcome, and why? What happens if you swap out a material, process or something else?
If you were brainstorming ways to improve upon gas-powered cars, you might ask yourself what to substitute. Eventually, you might ask yourself whether you could substitute its power source. Moving from gas to electricity is the substitution that sparks the idea of electric cars and sets off the chain reaction of imagining every component replaced with an electronic equivalent.
Now take your existing components, as well as your substitute items, and imagine combining them in new ways. Can you produce a better outcome? Are there functions or features that you can combine to make your idea better in some way? What about the process?
The underbody of standard cars is typically composed of hundreds of parts that are assembled together during manufacturing. Tesla simplified the underbody of their vehicle with a process called gigacasting, where they die-cast it as a single unit. You can think of this as the combination of the hundreds of parts that are required for the same purpose in gas-powered cars.
As you dive deeper into the SCAMPER technique, consider how you might adapt your idea. Can you transform a process or component of your idea to make it better? Is it possible to make your idea function differently?
In our example, don’t just think about adapting the vehicle or its power source. Think about the driver. How did people need to adapt to make EVs popular? One way was that they needed to be comfortable with slow-charging their vehicles at home or finding charging stations rather than relying on the vast network of gas stations. This led to innovations in how to power EVs. For example, we find charging stations at shopping malls and other places where people spend time doing other things. Another example of adaptation was the development of a method to fast swap weak batteries with fresh ones, rather than requiring drivers to wait for charging to complete.
Related: Two Stanford Professors Explain How to Produce Hundreds of World-Changing Ideas In 1 Hour
You can think of substitution, combining parts and adaptation as different forms of modification. Now, think through other ways you can change things up that don’t fit into those categories. What happens if you make this change? Can you increase or decrease something to produce a different effect? Try zooming in and zooming out to identify other things to modify.
One modification Tesla made was to flatten the battery and use it to reinforce the floor of the car. Contrast this with installing the battery in the back or front of the car like the Prius and other earlier vehicles. The result was a lower center of gravity, improving safety and handling, among other benefits.
Now think about how you might use your product, process or idea in a different way. How can you put it to another use? Think about adjacent markets that you haven’t explored.
Part of Tesla’s success has been their focus on “coolness” in their marketing, rather than utility. They’ve put EVs to a new use with the Cybertruck, which looks like something out of Mad Max. It’s cool. They’ve put their technology to other uses, too. EV semi trucks are capable of carrying heavy payloads. Over time, we may see even more ways to put this technology to another use.
Take another look at all of the components of your concept. What would happen if you removed one of its parts? What about other parts or processes? Are there unnecessary components?
One radical innovation was for Tesla to digitize their EV’s dashboard. This move eliminated analog dials, mechanical odometers and other parts and replaced them with a 17-inch LCD. The change simplified the design and reduced parts while increasing flexibility.
What would happen if you flip your idea around, turn it upside down or reverse the order of things? What about flipping it back and forth? Will something change?
One obvious reversal among EVs was the relationship between the driver and the car. By definition, drivers drive cars. With the advent of self-driving cars, the car effectively “drives” the “driver.” You could also try looking at the manufacturing process in reverse as a way to identify waste and optimize production.
Related: To Get Your Team Brainstorming Great Ideas, Start With Crazy
You can apply the SCAMPER technique to virtually any industry. Take the EV examples throughout this article, and try replacing them with a product, process or idea that you’re working on. Teach this method to your team, and see how it makes your organization more innovative and fun.
Revamp Your Creative Process With This Powerful Brainstorming Technique Read More »
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
There are few guarantees in business, but this one is certain: If you don’t keep customers, you won’t have a business for long. Yet, at a time when most companies are desperately trying to maintain customer loyalty (retention is more profitable than acquisition, after all), there’s often a missing link in their efforts: Understanding the powerful connection between customer satisfaction and employee engagement — and how to unlock it.
As a Chief People Officer currently overseeing my company’s customer organization, I’ve seen first-hand how connected they truly are. At its most basic, losing customers can have a direct impact on employee morale and even lead to regrettable talent turnover. But there’s more nuance to this connection: nearly everything employees do has the potential to deeply impact customers. In turn, customer feedback and outcomes can have a powerful effect on an employee’s sense of purpose, achievement and satisfaction.
Related: 7 Surefire Ways to Turn Your Low Customer Retention Rates Around
I’ve witnessed how establishing a customer-centric approach across the entire organization can lead to growth opportunities that benefit both employees and customers. But to get there, businesses need to leverage that connection by making customer success the forefront of every employee’s experience. Here’s how.
Most companies take a siloed approach to customer success, relegating it to a single department, while others remain largely insulated from customer interaction. But I’ve come to realize that the more we empower all of our cross-functional teams to contribute to customer success, the more purposeful, impactful and engaging their roles become, and the more they can drive customer loyalty and retention.
For a more holistic approach, I am a fan of the bowtie model. In contrast to the traditional marketing funnel, which ends when a customer converts, the bowtie provides a more end-to-end representation of the customer journey. It’s a better way to ensure everyone in the company is maximizing engagement with the customer over the long term — whether through strategic ongoing communication and marketing efforts or more integrated processes and practices designed to deepen this relationship.
One way we do this at my company is by encouraging every department to evaluate every task — and every ask — from the perspective of how it benefits the customer. Whether it’s marketing, sales, product or engineering, this filter is applied to all decision-making. Of course, we also look to metrics like Customer Satisfaction Score, customer retention, and revenue expansion with existing customers to ensure our efforts translate into results.
I recently traveled overseas to meet with a customer, and as I was leaving, their CFO turned to me and said something I’ll never forget: “Don’t get me fired.” It’s a powerful reminder that our view on customer success must be broader than just ensuring product integration or stability. Everything we do has a ripple effect on their company’s success, which can impact their personal reputation, too.
The concept of radical empathy isn’t new in customer service. Cultivating a deeper understanding of customer needs is crucial for effective product development, marketing and sales, but it can easily get lost once a customer is onboarded. Building more proactive touchpoints with customers —and even baking them into the early stages of product development — can help overcome this oversight.
For us, that means attending industry events and building out strategic channels and information-sharing communities to better understand their sticking points. We’ve also established customer segments and verticals to identify and interact with the unique needs of different types of customers to deliver a personalized service approach. When we understand how customers are using our product — and particularly their pain points — we can better target everything from our marketing and sales campaigns to all product-focused initiatives
Everyone in our organization knows customer retention is a team sport. Reaching out to customers to help solve product issues or when launching something new is not only possible but preferable. That’s precisely why we launched a customer retention program that treats flight risks as a pipeline and leverages tightly coordinated collaboration across departments to deliver impact to those customers.
Most importantly, these frequent and proactive touchpoints also allow us to learn what is working for our customers, which we’ve seen be a powerful motivator for our team.
Related: 3 Ways Founders Can Connect With Their Customers to Drive Sales
Being on the receiving end of an exceptional customer experience can radically shift the way we perceive a business. It turns out that when an employee has a hand in making that happen, it can be just as impactful for them.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise: today’s employees are looking for purpose in their work. Who doesn’t want to make a difference in the lives of others? Connecting this desire to customer success initiatives only makes sense — it improves the ability to deliver on customer promises and makes the workplace more satisfying for all.
And I believe organizations can take this connection a step further: pouring the same energy into employee experience that they do in fulfilling customers. In one of my previous roles, we would actively measure customer retention against employee retention and found a strong correlation between the two. These results were interesting but not shocking: prioritizing employee experience leads to more engaged employees, who, in turn, are motivated to create better customer experiences. Simply put, boosting satisfaction in one camp can effectively raise retention and productivity levels for both.
Of course, this balance isn’t always easy to get right. But in my experience, incremental improvements are what add up over time. Starting small is better than not at all. At the end of the day, the more your employees know, understand and care about your customers, the better they’ll serve them (and the more they’ll enjoy the results) — regardless of the role they are in. And that’s a true win-win for the bottom line.
