Eleanor is the founder and managing editor of Designerly Magazine with a passion for sharing business leadership and branding strategies. She’s also a web design consultant with a focus on customer experience and user interface.
B2B marketing isn’t what it used to be. A few years ago, you could rely on cold calls and trade shows to generate leads. But today’s buyers expect more before purchasing — personalized content, seamless digital experiences and tangible value.
Search engines and social media have changed how businesses discover solutions, making inbound marketing, automation and data-driven strategies essential. Plus, with algorithms constantly changing, you need a flexible, omnichannel approach to stay competitive. In 2025, building trust, authority and meaningful connections will turn prospects into loyal customers.
Do you dream of connecting your small business with global audiences? Make it a reality with a scaling plan and determination. Consistent and practical branding should be the foundation. Then, consumers everywhere can identify you among thousands of competitors. Follow these recommendations to overcome the challenges designers, marketers and owners face during expansion.
Most traditional marketing advice centers around business-to-consumer (B2C) interactions. Brands that inadvertently apply these recommendations to business-to-business (B2B) sales may not get the engagement or return on investment they are hoping for. Although B2B and B2C strategies have several similarities, they are fundamentally different.
This fact is especially true as of late. Digitalization has recently begun influencing the fundamentals of B2B and B2C marketing methods. What worked well a few years ago may no longer be effective today. How should small and medium-sized business (SMB) owners and marketing professionals modify their strategies?
In the world of industrial business, quality assurance and product is vital to growth. In the past, manufacturers had to worry about human error. Even with quality control measures in place, some problems slipped past and resulted in inferior materials making it into the hands of customers.
A wonderful thing that businesses cannot afford to operate without is technology. Since we live in a digital era, companies must find ways to embrace the new wave of technology.
Cognitive technologies are one aspect that can entirely benefit your organization. Today, they exist by conducting tasks traditionally performed by people. They support employees’ performance, helping businesses with cost, speed and quality.
With cognitive technology, it’s possible to automate tasks such as planning, learning and reasoning from uncertain information. Read on to learn about the latest cognitive solutions and how they’re helping employees improve their performance.
Whether you’re a locally operating small supply chain or international, high-level employee experience is the most important thing to boost your bottom line. When you drastically improve your employee experiences, you get less turnover, fewer absences and greater profitability.
Supply chain management’s essential role is to maintain productivity. But given the nature of this field, employee experience is a major challenge for managers in supply chains. However, providing a better employee experience can help you boost their morale and generate long-term revenue.
Here’s a closer look at some of the main obstacles to employee experience.
Having a firm grasp on inventory management saves your company money and prevents shrinkage. One of your biggest costs as a manufacturer may be in the products you order and the goods you ship out. If you don’t have a firm grasp on both, you risk losing money.
Customer data is necessary for small businesses. It helps them understand customer wants and needs and how they interact with brands. In a world where competition is high, companies can leverage data to stand out more and create impactful experiences for customers.
Customer experience has always been the go-to strategy for businesses, and for good reasons. In a study by PwC, researchers found that 42% of consumers are willing to pay more for a better experience.
Technology increases at such a rapid rate that it’s difficult to stay on top of new devices and changes in the industry. However, there are some tech gadgets that benefit your employees and help improve the way you run your business.
How you build and design your website, you should always have UX (user experience) at the forefront of your processes.
Without a good focus on UX, you may end up with a website that keeps visitors from engaging with your small business. Yet, a site that establishes long-term relationships with customers is key to growth and profitability.
Though most experts say UX is fundamental to online business success, maintaining a high-quality user experience at all times is no easy feat. One way to ensure the user experience is meeting user expectations is by analyzing your big data results.
Here are some ways business owners use it to improve UX.
Cybersecurity is important to all businesses that exist online. It allows them to operate without interruption from hackers' financial exploits.
Even if your company is planning to use email or has a small website in mind, your business needs to integrate cybersecurity into that plan.
The theft of data and sensitive information is becoming more common in fraud reports. According to Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report for Small Business, Ransomware has increased by 13% in a total of 25% breaches.
Data security is a term used frequently in news reports. This company or that had a data breach. Users should take measures to change passwords and lock down their credit reports and personal data.
At times, small businesses and organizations assume they may be less at risk for a data breach than mega corporations. Unfortunately, hackers don’t care who they target. They only want a successful win as they face the challenge of circumventing security measures. If you haven’t paid much attention to keeping your users’ data safe, now is the time to ramp up your efforts.
The right packaging shows your customers you care about their needs. Creating an excellent customer experience (CX) involves everything from your website to interactions to opening the product. Good packaging design helps build consumer confidence and shows them they can trust you to understand them.
E-commerce has a unique challenge with packaging. Not only do you have to consider the outer container for your product but you must think about the materials in the package, such as the box, padding, invoice and instructions.
