Category: Startup

Real estate business is growing like never before. With this growth, the behavior of buyers, as well as the seller, have also been changed in terms of their purchasing, renting or selling strategies. And this has been noted, not in particular one location but all over the globe. People no longer prefer to visit the property physically for the very first time. They would want a quick look at the apartment or a condo they are considering to buy or rent. And that could be only possible through fully functioned apps or websites.

On the other side, builders and realtors also understand how important it is to have their property listed on this online platform.

In this article, we are going to dive deeper into the mechanism of real estate mobile app like Zillow. I will guide you on how you could also make such kind of app for your startup idea. However, it’s not compulsory you must make an exact replica of popular property listing apps. You can also include your idea as well.

Without wasting our time, let’s get started with the online real estate business.

Before you go further, let’s check out some amazing statistics on popular real estate apps like Zillow and Trulia.

What Does the Statistic Suggest?

• Around 80% of the home purchasing decisions are taken by seeing property listing app Zillow.
• On average 186 homes are browsed through real estate mobile apps.
• Zillow App has approx 160 million active users which is quite a huge number.

How These Real Estate Apps Provide Value to the Users?

As we have seen the statistics on the Zillow app, people are really in awe of these kinds of applications. They love the convenience and mobility provided by property listing apps. Whether they are hunting for buying their dream home or looking for affordable homes in their neighborhood to rent, everything could be done through just a few taps. They could even search for home loans and perfect lenders for their loans. In fact, there are a home loan calculators to find out how much buyers will have to pay including taxes and insurance at the current interest rates.

Developers also have found an option for selling their property at the right price. They find these apps to be other options other than hiring real estate agents for selling their properties.

These are just a few of beneficiaries who find real estate applications to be helpful for their respective needs.

What Makes a Real Estate Mobile App Successful?  

More and more startups are creating real estate platforms as a startup idea. Still, there are countries where such kind of platforms do not exist. Even real estate companies provide their separate apps which only lists their own property with some other functionalities. However, not all the apps could be as successful as Zillow or Trulia.

Let’s figure out what makes a real estate mobile app successful.

listings: For Buying, Renting, and Selling

Though it sounds too mainstream, it is one of the most preferable options to have in the apps. Even people use their apps to find the right property around their favorite locale. They explore the rental apartments as well.

By including listing categories in the app you could target buyers and sellers both. So when Builders have a complete project to launch he could easily register his new property for a sell. Whether it’s a commercial, residential or industrial you must provide a platform so that builders could approach you for listing their properties. Not only builders but you must also provide a platform for the homeowner to sell their app on your app.

Agent Finder

The buyer usually takes plenty of time to figure out how to find a perfect real estate agent. In fact, real estate agents are the ones who are aware of each and every new and old property because they have access to the private database where every listing is stored. By incorporating the find agent tab in your app allows local agents to register in your app. Most importantly, buyers who are a novice in purchasing the home could easily find an ideal agent for their ideal home. Users could find listings under each agent and rate and reviews them according to their past experience.

Easy Search & Proper filters

Since more and more people are buying and selling home online on the apps and web platforms, you might want to make your search options simple so that more people could search by their area, address, city, and zip codes.

Add multiple filters so that users could sort out a property as per their likings. Take for example, Trulia has a filter for properties, price, bedrooms, type of sale(new, resale, sale by owners, etc), bathrooms, year built, and more to give the perfect property prospects to the users.

Also, add a map of the location and how many properties are listed on that map. By doing so one could directly hover onto the point and know the price, and other detail about that property. Moreover, nearby attractions, restaurants, schools, levels of crime, and other important aspects could be useful to the buyers.

Loan options and Mortgage Calculator

Zillow has incorporated loan options for the users. In the Zillow, Users can Simply fill the price of the home, down payment, and details about the loan to calculate your mortgage payment breakdown, schedule, and more.

Buying a home from a loan is a tricky business. Adding a  platform for finding the fitting lender for the users could be more useful. Having a listing of local lenders and their performance for the past years makes the app more appealing. So by implementing this option, you make your app more valuable.

Implementing Advanced Technology

Since the advent of the Augmented reality (AR), every industry has been leveraging its benefits by implementing for their business. Real estate is one of them. People admire everything new, sci-fi and entertaining. So you could also add;

• Interactive AR  catalogs and big boards.
• Geo-tags to help find your properties on sale in the real world, so customers can discover it themselves.
• AR implemented contact us and other call-to-action buttons.

Conclusion:

People are investing in real estate more than ever. Providing them a seamless way to find the ideal property would eliminate the hassle happened during the search. Why don’t you start your own app with unique functionality and new technologies and add a new horizon for earning money? Builders too could leverage multiple benefits through real estate app development.

What are your views on these real estate mobile apps?

Feel free to express your opinion!

From eCommerce to mCommerce, every business aims at increasing the ROI.

Even you might be in search of something to trigger your ROI, right?

But, the question is how to do that?   

Not to worry! In this article, we’ll go through a single feature named “Live Chat,” which can increase the ROI for your business.

Before going further, let us first get through some of the issues that lead to a drop in the ROI.

Facts Leading To the Drop-In ROI

Here I’m listing some of the issues faced by the user, which leads to a decrease in business ROI.

• Delay or completely ignoring the problem faced by the user.
• It is analyzed that approximately 70% of the companies disregard the issues faced by the customers, and 83% of the queries on social media go unanswered.
• Some users will uninstall your app and will switch to other apps, rather than giving any reviews. So, you will not be able to get the exact reason for the decrease in ROI.
• Reports say that 60% of the users reinstall applications. There is a 70% chance to sell your product to the regular customer in contrast to a new one.
• No marketing person can help you increase ROI if your application has a bad UX/UI.

So, what can be the one-stop solution to the problems mentioned above?

Read Also –  How to Increase Your Email Open Rate with Effective Subject Lines

Most Trending Customer Engagement Tool

LIVE CHAT, Yes, you heard it right! Including live chat option on your website or application will increase the chance of customer conversion by three times.

Live chat is the most effective channel to keep customers engaged on your website. And, the best thing here is that live chat is easy to install, unlike emails or phones.

When you integrate the live chat on your website or application, it will streamline your customer support service and uplift your brand image.

On account of the above information, live chat can be considered the best tech upgrade for your website to increase the ROI.

5 Live Chat Tips That Will Increase Your ROI

1. Buyer Support Through Live Chat

As soon as a customer faces a problem while surfing an eCommerce website, they might abandon their shopping.

There will always be customers who need assistance while going through the buying process. Therefore, supporting them through a medium like live chat will decrease the abandonment rate for the buying process.

With the help of the live chat agents, you can provide the best buyer support and advice at any point in their online journey. Live chat feature in your eCommerce or mCommerce application will help you convert your troubled customers into confident buyers.

Yes, you might not get the troubled customers every day, but if you keep them ignoring, it will lead to a decrease in sales. By offering support to the buyers in this situation increases ROI.

2. Cross-Selling For The Products

As told earlier, it is not just about selling everything to the customers but a matter of providing a valuable service (which, in a way, leads to an increase in ROI).

A material conversation with a website visitor can let you know a lot of information about the products you sell. For instance, if a live chat agent is working on a wine selling website, they can analyze whether a customer was buying dozens of red or white wine for any special occasion. If yes, then they would also need some champagnes for toast and even some new occasion perfect glasses to drink from.

Such analysis with live chat can help you in cross-selling of products, increasing ROI. And cross-selling of products can be quickly done for eCommerce as well as mCommerce website.

3. Basket Abandonment

We already discussed basket abandonment, but here we’ll go through another part of it.

Consider, a customer faces an “out-of-stock” message or payment error, will they stay on your website? Obviously not! So, to avoid this bounce by customers, we can pop up the message to offer help without waiting for them to ask for the same.

It can be done with the help of a proactive live chat. Consumers get an invitation to chat live about the problem they are facing with the help of the popup. It will reduce the basket abandonment rates and increase ROI for your website.

4. A Perfect Product For Customers

Live chat not just acts as a customer support channel, it’s even used to encourage the online shopper to buy quicker.

Remember, selling via live chat requires a lot of skills from the live chat agents. When a customer comes to enquire about some specifications for their needs, the live chat agents have to make sure that the question is resolved and the sale is made.

These days, whether it is eCommerce or mCommerce, personalization is an essential part. As 73% of the customers prefer to buy the products from the business providing a pleasant shopping experience.

Providing customers with the information they need through live chat will lead to a significant increase in ROI.

5. Avoid Attracting New Customers

For most of the cases, it happens that your marketing team will focus on strategies for gaining new customers rather than working on the regular ones. But, it is noticed that more than 50% of sales come from regular customers rather than new ones.

Henceforth, with the help of the live chat, you can keep the regular customer engaged and solve the issues faced by them. It will directly lead to an increase in ROI. One tip here is to keep your regular customers engaged, or bring back the ones who left. Try to advertise the latest changes you made on your website and mention reasons to use your application.

Live chat becomes essential for eCommerce and mCommerce websites.

Live Chat- Increases ROI (The Best Investment from eCommerce to mCommerce)

After having a glimpse of live chat for your business, do you agree it can increase the ROI for your business? Live chat can increase the ROI for your website and even put a satisfied smile on your customers’ faces. You have paid a huge cost of app development, and henceforth it is essential to get the best ROI for the same.

Below given are some of the reasons to include live chat in your eCommerce or mCommerce site,

• Supporting more than one customer at a time.
• Co-browse and live chat can go simultaneously.
• Live chat will decrease the customer support budget.
• It is the most trending thing out on the web.

So, why do you need it?

It is observed that more than 60% of customers refuse to wait for more than a minute to get their reply. In that case, if you have a live chat option on your site, your chat agents can quickly come up with the customer’s need. Once you keep engaging your user’s through live chat, you’ll see a drastic change in the ROI of your business.

Sounds good, right?

The Parting Thoughts

We learned above that, live chat is not just all about customer service. It can help your business to increase ROI with customer satisfaction for the services.

Implementing live chat and having the right team of experts handling the conversations is essential. And the best thing here is you don’t need to add a single penny in your cost of app development. You just need to add a plugin for including live chat.

So, that’s all for the day! Did you find this article helpful for your business?

What are your thoughts on live chat?

Let us know!

The world is revolving around the online and digital platforms. Today most mobile app users have android phones, and they prefer to have information about every small and big thing on their mobile set.

No doubt, the traditional methods of running a business successfully are still in existence, but the priority is heading over getting online as early as possible.

The reason being, the online platform has become a fast, easiest, time-effective, cost-effective, business-friendly as well as customer-friendly approach.

Should Start-Ups Invest in Mobile Applications?

In this fast-moving era, Mobile applications have taken over the system.

One of the most common questions that popups in businesses are should a start-up invest in developing mobile apps, or should they avoid this option?

It’s imperative for a start-up to crucially choose its marketing ways so that the business has a long life.

If you have an excellent business idea, your products are beautiful, but you are not aware of how to market those products as per the current trends, your business is highly at risk of failure.

The use and development of mobile applications are tremendously at a higher speed, and there is no chance of its decreasing over the coming years; instead, the increase will grow more and more.

As per the reports, mobile functioning and its use represent approx. 70 % of digital media time.

It is expected to generate 189 billion U.S. dollars in revenues through mobile applications while using in-app purchases and app stores by the year 2020.

However, having a mobile app is not sufficient; online activity continues to witness a rapid shift in the mobile industry. Developing mobile apps require the right amount of expertise.

Being an entrepreneur, racing, and working your idea into a million-dollar success requires you to invest in developing and using mobile applications for the better growth of your idea.

Following Are the Pointers That Will Clear All Your Ambiguities As To Why You Should Have Mobile Apps

Enhance a Global Reach

The online system has attained a global reach since the time of its inception. Once you have your mobile applications, your business will breathe overseas without your presence there.

The drawback of not having a mobile app that your business will suffer this global reach and the scope will be confined to the local markets only.

Stand Out from the Cut-Throat Competition

Many start-ups out in the market are still not aware of losses they are suffering by not building their mobile apps; hence, these apps get hidden for them.

So this is your chance to take a big leap over such businesses. And why not to invest in these mobile apps when these apps only help you grow your business and witness a long-lasting success?

Accessibility

Investing in Mobile application Development lets you virtually put your business in the minds of people.

These apps allow customers to access all the information they need regarding anything about your product or services in one go from anywhere and anytime.

Brand Recognition

These mobile apps have the power that can do wonders for your brand promotion. Through this, your business will get landed in the iOS and Android app stores.

This will further lead to the potential customers who are searching for the products and services you are offering.

A user-friendly mobile app will help in leaving a long-lasting impression on customers; consequently building the reputation of your brand.

Increased Customer Engagement & Retention

The attributes discussed above help in enhancing the participation of the customer with your business at a high level, and it gives them all in one experience.

With the help of mobile apps you are putting your business right in the palm of the hands of your customers, then why wouldn’t they prefer your products and services every time they have to buy something?

Increased Sales & Market Research

With the advancement in Fintech services like Paytm, Paypal, Amazon, online business is in trend.

As per the reports, after using mobile apps based, 49 % of sales got increased by approx. 500 companies.

So it is imperative for your business that you should invest in mobile apps.

Increased Return on Investment (ROI)

The biggest problem that keeps away the start-ups to invest in a mobile app is the initial and substantial cost.

However, it is essential to understand that the cost of not investing in such apps is far more expensive than the cost incurred in investing in them.

The price is nothing compared to the prospective brand value and opportunity that will generate additional sales with the help of mobile apps.

Real-Time Feedback and Improvisation on the Same

Just by relying on the web version of your business will never provide you what your users or potential customers think about your products and services.

Start-ups can’t communicate directly to the customers or carry out an extensive survey.

However, a mobile app is there to do it all for you. You get to know the real-time feedback for the users and can improve the services and products you display.

Provide Value to the Customers

The competition in the market is more fierce than ever. To grab a maximum number of customers in your scope, you need to offer the loyalty points or rewards into consideration.

And with the help of mobile apps, it is an effortless task to carry out and make your customers feel special.

Overall Development

Mobile apps are a fresh new channel for engagement, which yields a lot of data for companies to act on.

With this data, the start-ups can offer customized recommendations and tailored content that boosts their overall brand development.

Due to the greater flexibility and control that these apps offer, they continue to be an integral pillar of any business growth strategy.

Conclusion

We hope all your confusion has come to an end after reading all these pointers. So yes, you must have mobile applications for better growth, development, and survival of your business.

Author Bio :- Harikrishna Kundariya, a marketer, developer, IoT, ChatBot & Blockchain savvy, designer, co-founder, Director of eSparkBiz Technologies, a Mobile App Development Company in USA. His 8+ experience enables him to provide digital solutions to new start-ups based on IoT and ChatBot.

For entrepreneurs, formulating a business plan is an essential starting step on their journey to establish their business. They focus on developing a detailed business plan outlining every key aspect of their business including long-term objectives, product offerings, analysis of target markets, sales forecast, recruitment plan, marketing strategies, and financial plan.

There is no denying that a well-thought-out business plan helps convince investors and bankers to invest in your business and has other important purposes. But often, while being focused on developing a business plan, entrepreneurs neglect another important kind of plan – a Personal Development Plan.

If you are not familiar with what a personal development plan is, you must be wondering what it is. Just like a business plan focuses on a business’ goals and success, a personal development plan is a plan for an individual’s personal goals.

It is equally important for entrepreneurs to define and follow a personal development plan because self-improvement can benefit your business in more ways than you imagine.

So, how can you create a personal development plan to become a better entrepreneur? Let’s find out in this article.

6 Easy Steps to Create a Personal Development Plan

Unlike a business plan, a personal development plan does not have a set format. It is simply a document that you create to have a sense of purpose and direction and to focus on personal growth. Here are the 6 steps to help you make your personal development plan.

1. Define What’s Important

To create a personal development plan, the first step for you is to list down all the important goals you want to achieve. To do this, ask yourself:

• What do you want to accomplish?
• Which new skills you want to learn?
• What are your unfulfilled dreams?
• Who do you aspire to be like?
• What would you be happier to achieve?

Answering these questions will define your goals. You should write down 10-15 important goals which you want to achieve. They can be goals related to your personal life or your career. Out of these, prioritize one goal that is the most important to you and make a personal development plan that is focused to achieve that.

2. Identify Your Strengths and Weaknesses

The next step for creating a personal development plan is to analyse your strengths and weaknesses. List down your key strengths and weaknesses, and ask for your friends’ and family’s help if you can not think of this on your own. This gives you a clear depiction of what specific areas you are good at so that you can focus on them or you can focus on your weak areas to improve them. For example, if you know you are good at writing, then learning content marketing for your business can be a good skill for you to acquire. Similarly, if you are not good with numbers then learning a skill such as video game designing that is based on that would be unfavorable for you.

In short, knowing your key strengths and weaknesses allow you stay focused and set realistic goals for yourself.

3. Learn New Skills

You can think of any skill that you want to learn, it can be an interpersonal skill such as verbal communication skills or a new professional skill such as learning coding and programming or social media marketing. To decide which skill you want to learn there are 2 important things to remember: a) It is better to focus on one skill at a time so that you can manage it alongside running your business and b) it is better if the skill you want to develop is transferable, meaning that it can be used to positively contribute to your business’ success. Once you decide what skills you want to develop you can follow the next steps to go about learning them.

4. Set a Deadline

Once you decide on a skill you want to develop, you have a goal to work on. And every SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) goal should have a deadline. Being an entrepreneur making time in your hectic work schedule is difficult and you will never be able to achieve your goal if you do not set a realistic deadline and stick to it.

Saying “I want to learn the skill of coding and programming someday” is not enough. You need to set a specific deadline (e.g. 2 months) within which you can realistically achieve your goal by not compromising on your entrepreneurial duties.

5. Have an Action Plan

Having a decided goal and a deadline means the next step is to draft an action plan. Here you need to decide what you exactly need to do to accomplish your goals. Write down at least 2-6 important activities you will perform to learn the goal within the set timeframe. For example, your action can be as follows:

1. I will read a book on programming (1 week)
2. I will research online about the basics of coding and programming (1 week)
3. I will start a 3-week long online course to learn to code (3 weeks)
4. I will practice coding a simple website (1 week)

Having a set action plan will keep you focused on actually learning the skill.

6. Evaluate Your Progress

To keep yourself motivated in achieving the goals you need to measure your own progress. You can make a list of your accomplishments and refer to the previous steps to find out how much progress you have made and if your approach is effective or not. The aim of this step if to identify what has been working well for you and what needs to be changed or improved?

If you identify that a certain activity in your action plan is not working for you, you can decide to change your strategy. For example, if you find that your plan to learn coding through an online course is not helping you learn then you can adopt a different strategy such as reaching out to an expert programmer to teach you in-person.

Wrapping Up!

A personal development plan is a powerful exercise for you to focus on your personal growth and to extend your learning curve. It is a good practice to make a new personal development plan every year so that you can be a better entrepreneur and add value to your business.

This 6-step personal development plan is rooted in the philosophy that personal development positively impacts professional performance. It focuses on the idea of constant learning and evolving of an entrepreneur’s skill set. Therefore, entrepreneurs must focus on personal development plans equally as much as they focus on a business plan.

Crowdfunding has emerged as an effective way to raise funds for projects and various causes ranging from developing a tech gadget to shooting an independent movie to building an innovative software solution. Thanks to the crowdfunding platforms, creative and ambitious development projects no longer need to be concerned about investment while chasing their dream. Many innovations starting out of garage spaces could see the sweet glow of success thanks to overwhelming crowdfunding support.

Anyone having familiarity with the crowdfunding knows about Indiegogo or Kickstarter, two undisputed leaders among the crowdfunding platforms. While both are superb platforms, each has its own pros and cons as well. Instead of listing the pros and cons, here we are going to see how they work and differ in terms of advantages and disadvantages for various aspiring projects.

The Basic Difference

Let’s start with the fundamental difference. Well, Kickstarter is basically a crowdfunding platform for creative projects such as innovative gadgets, films, games, and books. In contrast, Indiegogo allows crowdfunding for creative projects as well as a lot of other types of campaigns such as animal rights protection funding, small business funding, environmental rights campaign funding and many others. Even Mobile App Developers can launch campaigns to raise funds for development. This platform can actually be used for nearly anything while Kickstarter sticks to only limited types of creative projects.

How does Kickstarter Funding work?

Kickstarter follows only one model for funding, and it can be dubbed as the all-or-nothing model. As per this model, backers can pledge any amount of money for your campaign, but if the fundraising goal is not achieved within the predetermined deadline, the backers aren’t charged their pledged money, and you don’t get anything for the project. This is why campaigns on this platform are advised to go for only attainable goals that can be achieved within the timeline.

How does Indiegogo Funding work?

In complete contrast to the Kickstarter, we have two different funding options with Indiegogo. The first option is just like the one that works for Kickstarter. In case you don’t achieve the funding goal, the backers are refunded their money, and you don’t get anything.

The second funding option allows you to keep the pledged amount without achieving the funding goal. This flexible model works best for projects that require some time to gather interest and projects that are not confident enough to raise the fund within a specified time.

Indiegogo vs Kickstarter Fees

Both Kickstarter and Indiegogo charge a portion of the entire funds raised through campaigns on their platforms. Apart from this they also charge a processing fee.

Kickstarter charges 5% of the entire raised funds. But in case you don’t meet your target, the platform doesn’t charge a penny from you. Apart from this, the platform also charges a payment processing fee between 3% and 5%.

Indiegogo takes a similar charge as 5% of the funds raised. Instead of charging on the fundraising goal amount, they charge on the actual money raised. They take a 3% Processing to feel along with 30 cents for each transaction.

Media and Outreach

As of now, Kickstarter enjoys more media exposure than IndieGogo. The media outreach and image of Kickstarter is better compared to IndieGogo because of the stricter quality control measures. IndieGogo also gets good press coverage and online media attention thanks to an array of innovative projects hosted by the platform.

Can You Start a Campaign on Kickstarter or Indiegogo?

When it comes to the eligibility criteria, both platforms have their set of rules for starting campaigns. On Kickstarter, only the permanent citizens of the UK and North America can start campaigning provided the campaigner is 18 years of age.

Indiegogo, on the other hand, has a global presence and quite rightfully considers itself as a worldwide crowdfunding platform. Anyone living anywhere in the world can just start a campaign except the countries in the US OFAC sanctions list.

The Application Process for Campaign on Kickstarter or Indiegogo

Kickstarter campaigns are required approval from the authorities before they are allowed to go live on the Kickstarter page. Generally, on Kickstarter, the creative projects that are encouraged to participate are on the verge of completion when starting their fundraising initiative. Some of the key creative niches that are allowed for fundraising campaigns include tech gadgets, software, games, fashion, film, comics, art, design, dance, music, photography, and theater.

Indiegogo runs without any strict control of participants, and anyone can start a campaign on this platform. All you need to do is to create a free account and begin your campaign. You only need to have a bank account in your name.

Which Platform Is Ideal?

Finally, let’s face the obvious question: which of these two crowdfunding platforms is better and ideal? Well, both have their own set of pros and cons, and so, no platform can be considered better than the other. As we have seen, Indiegogo is much more flexible and accommodating for all sorts of campaigns while Kickstarter is only good for highly credible projects that require only last-mile funding to start production.

Since Kickstarter doesn’t allow any participant from countries other than the US, UK, Canada, and a few others, anyone living in Asia, Latin America or Africa should automatically strike out this as an option.

As for fees, both platforms have little or negligible differences. Both have a global presence and massive popularity among the creative developers, gadget makers and people working with a variety of innovative projects.

Conclusion

Crowdfunding has come as a great bliss to all those innovative projects that often need to limp forward because of a lack of resources and funding in spite of their merit. Thanks to IndieGogo and Kickstarter now, innovations of all types can now become see the light of the day.

This article is contributed by Mushavvirkhan Balooch — Digital Marketing Expert at Square Root Solutions.

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