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Easy Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies: A Practical Guide On How To Optimize Your Store

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Easy Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies: A Practical Guide On How To Optimize Your Store

If you’re a store or website owner, one of your biggest goals is likely to increase customer conversions. After all, successful conversion rate optimization can make a world of difference when it comes to growing your business.

What if we say you can take your struggling to store to a successful one by just making some small tweaks?

Yes. There are plenty of proven tactics that can help you increase conversion rate of your store while also boosting profits. And no, you don’t need much technical experience for that.

In this comprehensive guide, we will outline everything from understanding Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) to implementing easy-to-understand strategies that will take your store’s results up another level.

Ready? Let’s dive in!

What Is Conversion Rate?

Simply put, the conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your website or store who take a desired action. It can be anything from signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, sharing content, or downloading an app.

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Most often, though, it’s used to measure how many people are actually buying something on your site.

Conversion rate is a good way to measure the success of your store. The higher the rate, the better it is for you in terms of sales and customer acquisition.

What Is A Good Conversion Rate?

The answer to this question depends on the industry you’re in, as well as factors such as:

  • Traffic source
  • Your Goals
  • Audience profile
  • Your Offer
  • and a couple of other things

Generally speaking, though, a good conversion rate is anything above 2%.

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However, remember that improving your conversion rate is always an ongoing process. If you have a decent conversion rate today, there might be room for improvement tomorrow. That’s why you should continuously track and analyze your data to fine-tune performance.

What Is Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)?

Conversion rate optimization (also often called CRO Optimization) is the process of improving the performance of a website or store through measures that increase conversions.

In other words, it’s about identifying which elements on your site work best and which need to be improved. CRO can involve testing different design elements, making changes to the user experience, or even running campaigns with special offers and discounts.

The primary goal of CRO is to increase your store’s overall performance by improving customer satisfaction, increasing sales, and driving more traffic to the site. Doing so can make more money and improve your bottom line.

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But how do you calculate the conversion rate?

How To Calculate Conversion Rate?

Calculating your conversion rate is fairly simple. All you have to do is take the total number of visitors to your website or store, divide it by the total number of conversions, and multiply by 100. The resulting figure will give you an idea of how effectively your store converts visitors into customers.

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For example, if you had 1000 visitors to your site and 24 converted, your conversion rate would be 2.4%.

But remember that you need to define a conversion first. This could be a purchase, sign-up, or download — all of which can be tracked inside your Google Analytics dashboard.

Also, remember to associate your goal with the relevant page. For example, if your goal is to get newsletter sign-ups and the form is on the contact page or a product page, you will only count the website visitors on that specific page, not the home page or others.

That’s how you accurately calculate the conversion rate.

But why do businesses get crazy about conversion optimization? Why are conversion rates important?

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What Are The Benefits Of Conversion Rate Optimization?

CRO optimization allows you to maximize the potential of every visitor who comes to your store. This means more sales, leads, and customers – all without spending a dime on advertising.

Besides the numbers, the conversion rate optimization process also helps you understand customers’ psychology. You get to know what motivates people on your site and which channels are the most effective at driving high-quality traffic.

This information can be invaluable when crafting your brand’s digital marketing strategy.

In addition, CRO also helps you identify opportunities to improve user experience, making visitors more likely to trust your brand and add to your website’s conversion rate.

Finally, conversion optimization allows you to maximize your profits, reduce costs, and increase customer satisfaction –what every brand desires!

Now that you understand what is conversion rate and how to calculate it, let’s walk you through the core elements of an effective CRO process.

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The Science Of Ecommerce Conversion Optimization: 6 Critical Elements

The six elements of a successful CRO process can be grouped into two categories:

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Here’s how each one of them affects your site’s conversion rate:

Website Speed

Let’s admit it. Slow websites are annoying. This is true to the point that website visitors almost immediately bounce off a page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.

This not only impacts your conversion rate but also hurts your website’s SEO.

So, make sure your website loads in under 3 seconds, or be prepared to lose more and more prospects.

Design

Looks matter. A Lot!

If you have a professionally designed, eye-pleasing website and landing page, users will automatically feel welcomed and comfortable to navigate.

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So, naturally, a good design will drive actions and add to the conversion rate.

Copywriting

The next thing site visitors notice on your product pages or landing pages are the “words.”

Users are more likely to spend time or take a desired action on your website if the copy speaks to their needs and desires.

So, hire an experienced and highly-skilled copywriter who knows how to research your target audience and write compelling copy.

Website Structure

This should be easy to understand.

When shopping online, people don’t stay on a single web page. They often like to check out different items and browse product pages.

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This is where a decent website structure can aid in conversion.

If your website is easy-to-navigate, users are likely to stay on your website and move closer to a conversion.

On the other hand, if the structure is complex, they will most likely bounce off.

CTAs

Next up are your call-to-action buttons. Although they’re part of the website copy, they play a different role. While website copy influences decision-making, CTAs are often the key drivers behind conversion.

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Words and phrases like “Order Now For Free Shipping,” “Access Now,” or “Contact Today For A Free Quote” have the power to influence people’s decisions and drive actions.

So, choose your CTAs wisely.

Forms

Finally, your website forms and their optimization are critical to the conversion rate.

If your web form is long (with unnecessary fields) or too complicated (requiring extra steps), it will negatively impact the conversion rate.

The idea is to keep them short, sweet, and simple.

These are some of the core elements of a successful CRO strategy that can help brands get more out of their digital marketing efforts.

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Now that you know what makes a successful conversion funnel, here are a few tips to increase the conversion rate of your ecommerce site or store.

Conversion Rate Optimization Tips & Tricks

Tip 1 – Do Some Split testing or A/B testing

Split testing or A/B testing is often used to optimize the website and make it more conversion friendly.

It basically involves creating two versions of a web page with slight variations and testing them out on live audiences to see which one performs better.

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Though you can test several things, it’s a nice idea to test variations of:

  • Headlines
  • Color themes
  • Design elements (buttons, banners, etc.)
  • Button placement
  • Layout
  • Website copy
  • CTA
  • Images
  • Videos

However, make sure you don’t change several things together. Why?

Because it will make it almost impossible to figure out which change actually had an impact on the conversion rate.

So, don’t overdo the variations.

Tip 2 – Add A Site Search Feature

A search bar is a must-have for any website or store with plenty of products.

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It helps users quickly find what they’re looking for and improves the on-site experience.

This was even confirmed by Forrester Research (a research and consulting company). It found that almost 43% of web users head straight to the search bar. Plus, it increases their chances of conversion by 2-3 times and helps prospects take action.

That’s one way how the search bar helps. But there’s another way.

You can analyze search queries to understand user behavior and tailor your website according to their preferences.

Tip 3 – Set Up Easy Forms

Remember the core elements of CRO optimization?

As already mentioned, forms play an important role when it comes to optimizing the conversion rate.

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That’s why it’s important to create simple forms with minimum fields and help users get through the process effortlessly. Also, make sure you add helpful prompts or auto-fill features to reduce friction and expedite the process. These simple tweaks can make a world of difference.

You also need to apply the same logic when creating forms for lead generation or any other purpose. Keep them short and sweet.

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Fact: “Using a quiz-like form to capture information has the potential to triple conversions.” (WPForms)

So, get creative with your forms to get more conversions. Use a quiz format, add a lead magnet, or incorporate a chatbot. They will help you get more prospects and conversions.

The idea is to make the process simple and engaging for users.

Tip 4 – Use Better CTAs

The CTAs you use on your website can be a game changer.

Good CTAs are clear and concise and should help users take the desired action without any confusion. How?

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Well, you need to come up with CTAs that are:

  • persuasive
  • descriptive
  • benefit-focused

Besides the above, effective CTAs usually invoke a sense of urgency or achievement. For instance, words like “Unlock” or “Get Exclusive Access” play with users’ psychology and make them feel rewarded. It creates a sense of exclusivity and often leads to higher conversions.

Similarly, phrases like “Order Now Before Stock Runs Out” or “Free Shipping For Next 10 Hours” trigger emotions of urgency and encourage prospects to take action quickly.

This is how you can leverage compelling copy to make your CTAs more effective and boost your conversion rates.

Plus, you can also try changing the following CTA elements:

  • CTA type (Forms, text, button)
  • Placement
  • Button Shape
  • Button Size
  • Colors

Refer back to tip number 1 and do split testing to see what works better.

Tip 5 – Better User Experience

User experience plays a key role when it comes to CRO optimization. That’s why you must ensure your website or store provides a pleasant user experience.

How?

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Think from a customer’s perspective – what would make your site more enjoyable for them?

Here are a couple of aspects to focus on:

Navigation: Make sure your website or store has an intuitive navigation system that makes it easy for users to find what they’re looking for.

Content: Create well-structured, organized, and informative content that is both easy to grasp and adds value. Make sure your content is tailored to the readers and resonates with them.

Layout: Design a website or store with clean lines and an organized layout that makes it easy to read and navigate.

Optimization: Optimize your website or store for speed, performance, and mobile devices.

By addressing all the above, you can enhance the user experience and increase conversions.

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So, focus on enhancing the user experience to get more sales and leads from your website or store.

Tip 6 – Use Heat Maps For User Testing

A heat map is a powerful tool that helps you determine where users click on your web pages.

For instance, heat maps show which sections or elements of your website or store are getting the most attention and which ones are being neglected.

Yes. You can actually find out if users are paying attention to the navigation bar, CTA buttons, or links that you have carefully placed on your website. Some tools even have an eye-tracking integration to tell you where users look first when they land on your ecommerce website.

This can give you greater insights into user behavior and help you identify:

  • effective website sections,
  • improvement opportunities,
  • and, potential issues and problems.

Overall, heat maps are excellent for ecommerce conversion optimization as they help you understand what elements of your store need more focus and attention.

Tip 7 – Add Pop-ups

Pop-ups are great for boosting conversions. They help you capture customer information such as email address, name, phone number, and more.

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You can use pop-ups for a variety of purposes, such as:

  • Offering discounts or coupons,
  • Inviting people to join a newsletter,
  • Introducing new products or services,
  • Collecting feedback and ratings,
  • Showing important notifications.

Pop-ups are also extremely effective in retargeting customers. You can use them to show special offers or discounts to customers who have already visited your website or store.

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However, despite having an excellent conversion rate of 11.09%, you need to be careful when using pop-ups, as too many can annoy customers and drive them away. Also, they must have fast loading speeds and easy-to-spot exit options, otherwise, it could turn off the existing traffic and drive them away.

So, be cautious with pop-ups and use them right!

Tip 8 – Leverage Live Chat or Chatbots

Live chat is a great way to boost conversions. It enables potential customers to chat with you directly and get their queries answered in real time. This helps build trust and customer loyalty, which leads to more conversions.

But if you don’t have the resources for a live chat team, you can use chatbots instead. Chatbots are automated conversational AI systems that can answer frequently asked questions (FAQs) and help customers with their queries.

However, make sure you choose a chatbot that fits your budget, integrates well with your system, and aligns with your business goals.

So, these were some of the most effective conversion rate optimization strategies you can use to increase conversion rate of your store.

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Besides the above, you can try:

  • adding some social proof
  • using targeted lead magnets
  • enhancing the checkout experience
  • focusing on abandoned carts
  • using retargeting

These are all proven techniques that boost website conversion rates by turning website visitors into paying customers!

However, instead of relying only on tricks of the trade, developing strong ecommerce marketing concepts is highly recommended to get ahead in the commerce world.

Master The Fundamentals For Successful Ecommerce Conversion Optimization

While this guide will surely help you get started with your store’s CRO optimization, there’s much more to CRO than just tips and tricks.

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Ecommerce success depends on understanding your target audience and developing a suitable marketing strategy for your store.

So, before starting your optimization efforts, you need to focus on the basics, like understanding the core pillars of ecommerce, creating customer avatars, and developing a sales-worthy offer. How can you learn this all?

Our Ecommerce Marketing Mastery Certificate offers advanced ecommerce marketing knowledge so that you start strong and optimize your store from the ground up.

Don’t have time on your hands? Consider hiring a specialized ecommerce agency to take care of ecommerce conversion optimization and marketing for you.

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With the right knowledge, tools, and team, you’d be well on your way to building a profitable ecommerce business.


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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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