Sip Trunking Providers: How to Find them for Your Business

SIP Trunking refers to a technology that transmits your voice calls over the Internet rather than traditional phone lines. To improve communication capabilities and save money, many businesses are turning to SIP Trunking.

With so many SIP Trunk providers in the market, it can be a challenge to pick the right one. To make things easy for you, we have provided guidelines on how to find the right SIP Trunking service provider for your business.

Voice Quality

Voice quality is an important aspect of telecommunication, and the SIP Trunking service would fall flat in the absence of high-quality communications. While finding SIP Trunking services for your business, you need to look for a service provider who can ensure users can send and receive calls efficiently and clearly.

Look for Tier 1 carriers that have all comprehensive networks to deliver voice and data to their customers. Tier 1 carriers do not borrow network capacity from others. You should stay away for SIP Trunking services that use Least-cost routing, which compromises on voice quality to save on costs.

You need to look for a SIP Trunking service that has at least one PoP (point of presence) in the region you want to reach to ensure call clarity and low latency.

Coverage

The geographical coverage allows SIP Trunking service to expand VoIP infrastructure without any complexities, like negotiating with local carriers. The SIP Trunking service should be able to facilitate international calls.

The service provider should offer different numbers across countries to facilitate inbound calls. For example, it should provide a local UK number to its US client to facilitate communication with UK based customers. In that case, the UK customers would be calling a local UK number and don’t need to dial an international call to connect to the US office.

Cost

One of the reasons for using SIP Trunking is reducing communication costs.  Long distances calling, which includes international calls, are cheaper over SIP Trunks. A pay-as-you-go plan can help you keep the costs low as you only pay for the services you need.  This is better than upfront payment for channels where you might be paying for a bundle of services that you don’t need.

You can easily scale your VoIP system with SIP Trunking without additional investment in infrastructure. SIP Trunk providers offer different plans, and you need to select a plan that meets your business requirements and offers the best value for money.

Reliability

The reliability of communication is directly related to business continuity. If there are consistent call drops, you lose the benefits of switching to SIP Trunking.  You need to look for SIP Trunking services that have a redundant infrastructure to ensure a higher SLA guarantee.

A SIP Trunk service provider with multiple carrier connections across continents can ensure reliability in long-distance calling. Look for SIP Trunking services that offer 99.9% uptime guaranteed and are connected to multiple Tier 1 carriers in different continents where you want to reach.

Security

Security of communication is a big concern for businesses. The SIP Trunking service provider should protect your network and ensure your calls do not get intercepted. Look for service providers that offer IP authentication to protect your SIP Trunks.

Leading SIP Trunking service providers use Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP) and Transport Layer Security to encrypt Trunks.

Interoperability

Companies that have already invested in telephone systems need to look at SIP Trunking services that offer interoperability with existing telephone systems. This will ensure the company does not have to go through a complete system/technology overhaul. Leading SIP Trunk service providers offer interoperability through IP-PBXs and standard soft switches.

Flexibility

Flexibility is an important factor for businesses. Leading SIP Trunk service providers offer different levels of flexibility in the form of flexible contracts. In such a contract set up, the client can choose to increase or decrease services as per business needs. The SIP Trunk service is not locked down to undesirable terms and conditions.

Some of the flexibility features include configure softphone compatibility, add IP access control lists, adjust services, and change phone numbers. This allows businesses to scale up and down to meet peak and low business periods and control costs.

So how do you choose Sip truck providers?

Five Digital Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Startup In 2019

China is undoubtedly one of the biggest web communities all over the world, with over 660 million internet users! This is also probably one of the reasons many startups and medium-sized companies are looking to enter the Chinese market; a bigger target audience helps promote their brand and in turn, generate higher revenue. But how does one enter a new marketplace and conquer the minds of a stranger target audience? 

This article gives you five digital marketing strategies in China that could kick-start (if not greatly benefit) your start-up. Keep reading to find out!

1. Making Your Content Irresistible

There used to be a time when a blog or website was compelling enough with mediocrely-written articles coupled with images. But in today’s ever-changing marketplace, you cannot afford to be mediocre, because no one will want you. An excellent digital marketing strategy in China for 2019 is making use of videos. This may surprise you, but the online video market in China is highly profitable! Exceeding over 25 billion USD, the video marketing strategy is sure to amp up your business. 

How to go about it? Keep it simple: use storytelling strategies to express ideas and communicate with your audience by creating unforgettable videos. Also, keep in mind that a greater chunk of the population are watching videos on their mobile phones, as opposed to PCs and laptops. You cannot use YouTube in China, but some video platforms you may use are YouKu, Tudoi, Sohu and Baidu video!

2. Be Mobile-Friendly

Now that you have the right kind of content, remember to keep it mobile-friendly! A common digital marketing strategy in China this year is to go about your business ideas keeping in mind that Baidu mobile users have reached a soaring 663 million! What does this mean? Ideally, your strategy should aim at tailoring your tools to cell phones. Let’s say you have a Chinese website; make sure that it does not freeze up when you open it on your phone, and the layout doesn’t change (distortion is often an issue when websites are opened on mobile phones). 

Known as a “mobile marketing strategy” today, this digital marketing strategy never fails. Better yet, make a mobile app for your website, or go for a fully-blown mobile marketing strategy. 

3. Take Advantage of WeChat

When aiming at a new target audience, you must learn how to connect with them. Did you know that in China, WeChat app (a text and audio messaging mobile app) is the most dominant way of communicating? 6 out of 10 customers visit the app at least ten times over 24 hours to stay updated on current affairs and to communicate with others. Also, three-quarters of the customers are aged between 18 and 35. So, if your target audience falls under this range, you should be incorporating WeChat into your digital marketing strategy!

Form an official account and use its many features to promote your products and reach out to potential customers with your improved-upon content. This will help draw traffic towards your website! Some ways to grow your business using WeChat are WeChat moments, QR codes, WeChat mini websites, WeChat M-stores, etc. (take your pick, really).

4. Maintain A Good Reputation Online

A deeply-rooted cultural principle in China is the “Mian Zi 面子”, which means “keeping face.” Always remember that the Chinese value information shared across all social media platforms, so maintaining a good e-reputation is crucial. If they notice negative comments about your company being splashed all across social media, they lean towards trusting these comments. 

5. Put the Optimization in SEO

Finally, optimize! Let’s say you’ve got great articles with pertinent information, relatable videos, high-quality pictures: the works. Now, you need to reveal your content to potential customers. How do you do that?

The answer is: Baidu. The Baidu Search Engine is the answer to all your Chinese digital marketing strategy questions. It is the most famous search engine in the country, with over 80% of the market share. In fact, most searches in China go through Baidu. It is therefore important to ensure you have a Chinese website, and that it is optimized for Baidu. 

Remember, Baidu is not like Google, so a brand new SEO strategy will be required to meet Baidu’s requirements. Just remember to include the keywords, update content with fresh, diverse material, create a website in Chinese with a local host, and abide by the rules of the Chinese government in every step of the way: and you’re set!

Reasons to Use WeChat Marketing Agency

If you want to increase your brand visibility in China, it is imperative that you have an active presence on leading Chinese social media platforms like WeChat. With over one billion monthly users, many of whom check it at least ten times a day, WeChat is a versatile app that extends well beyond a simple chat platform. Along with using it for communication purposes, you can use it for e-commerce, provide swift customer service, and as a wallet.

With WeChat, you will be able to reach out to and engage with large numbers of potential customers, boost your online sales, and build a loyal following.

Sounds great? There are a few caveats, however. To make competent use of WeChat, you need to have an in-depth knowledge of the Chinese language, culture, social trends, and consumer behavior. Also, you must be familiar with Chinese legal rules and requirements to get on the platform in the first place. If you have the requisite knowledge, you will have an advantage in leveraging the massive Chinese market. However, few foreign businesses have this ability, and so they must work with a WeChat marketing agency.

Here are some more valid reasons to use a WeChat marketing agency.

They can help you with account registration

The Chinese government requires foreign businesses to register officially before using WeChat and other Chinese social media accounts.  You have two options for signing up for a WeChat public account—you can do so as a foreign company or through a Chinese agency. The latter option gives you the advantages accorded to businesses registered in China, which are not available to those without an officially sanctioned identity in the country.

For instance, by registering on WeChat through an agency, you can use all WeChat features and connect with users based in China. On the other hand, if you registered as a foreign company, you can only communicate with WeChat users from outside China. That would defeat your original purpose of getting on WeChat to reach out to consumers within the country.

A WeChat marketing agency will inform you of the necessary documents and fees for opening your account, and they will also handle the entire registration process for you.

They can help you develop a better market understanding

Every market has unique requirements, and China is no different. What worked for you abroad may not necessarily work here. The culture, language, consumer behavior, and trends in China are too unique, and if you don’t know these, you won’t survive the competition. That is why it will benefit you to work with a WeChat marketing agency. They will assess the best way to position your products and services in the Chinese market and guide you in developing a China-specific marketing strategy.

They can help you to achieve a maximum audience outreach

Connecting and engaging with the right audience is crucial for increasing your brand identity and enhancing your online sales. The WeChat marketing agency will help you with this by researching your target audience. They will then plan the relevant social media posts and other content for your WeChat account to attract, engage with, and retain this audience.

They can help to develop a mobile-friendly marketing strategy

Mobile device users make up the highest percentage of WeChat users. So, to reach this audience, you need to make sure that your marketing strategy is mobile friendly. A WeChat marketing agency will help you in creating and optimizing mobile-friendly content to increase traffic to your WeChat account and website and maximize your business.

They can integrate your business with the wallet feature

The WeChat wallet feature offers real convenience to users as they can browse products and services on their mobile devices and buy them at once if they like them. They can also use WeChat to pay for offline purchases. Since consumers in China have become accustomed to using WeChat for making their payments, being on WeChat and having the WeChat wallet feature will work out to your advantage.

The advantages of working with a WeChat marketing agency are manifold, as you see. They will help you make maximum use of a growing number of WeChat apps and boost your business in China.

Why Does Your Business Need a Digital Marketing Agency?

With its massive population, China offers lucrative business opportunities that you cannot afford to miss. However, the Chinese market is not the same as the US or other Western countries. If you want to reach and engage the Chinese audience, you need to team up with top China digital marketing agency.

Here are a few examples of why you need a digital marketing agency in China to take your business to the pinnacle of success.

Digital Marketing in China Is Different

If you think your customer engagement strategies used on Google will work in China, you are wrong. You would be surprised to hear that Baidu is the most popular search engine in China and not Google. Baidu has an upper hand in China. The search engine is focused on the local Chinese market, with more than 74.6% search queries. Baidu only indexes websites and content in simplified Chinese and does not index content in English or other languages. This can be a big drawback if you are not an expert in the Chinese language.

You can turn things in your favor by employing a China digital marketing agency. The agency would know the tips and tricks to attract the Chinese audience on Baidu and can help establish your brand in China in lesser time. Once your brand is established in China, it would be easy to achieve sales target in China.

Websites Are Not the Most Popular Online Platforms in China

Creating a website in China is not enough to attract a large number of Chinese customers. The emergence of apps like WeChat has affected the popularity of websites. Chinese users are spending hours on WeChat, and it is mainly due to the diverse functionality offered by the chat platform.

WeChat allows users to read articles, pay bills, message their friends, play games, and the list goes on. This online behavior has reduced the number of visitors to websites. If you want to build a brand in China, you need to use the popularity of WeChat to your advantage.

A digital marketing agency in China can help you develop a good marketing campaign for the WeChat platform that can help your organization reach a large number of prospective customers that can take your business to a new height of success.

Different Tiers-Different Customers

Generalizing customers can be a big mistake in digital marketing in China. The consumer behavior in China changes with financial strata’s. In fact, the consumer behavior in Tier One, Tier Two, and Tier Three cities can be largely different, and ignoring this aspect can be fatal to the growth of your brand.

For example, consumers in Tier Three cities largely use an app named “Pinduoduo”. The app mainly focuses on group buying, and users can score big discounts by getting their friends included in the deal. The nature of the app appeals to lower-income individuals in rural cities. You need to take into account consumer behavior before moving ahead with your marketing strategy.

A digital marketing company in China would be well aware of this marketing aspect and help you develop the right digital marketing strategies and right target platforms.

Community Building Is Crucial for Success

Community building is one of the most important C’s of China’s marketing. If you look at any successful app in China’s digital marketing space, you will note they have a strong social/communal aspect.

To achieve success in China and take your business to a new height of success, you need to focus on creating communities with niche interests. These purpose-built communities can help you foster brand evangelists, build a reputation, and get first-hand access to your target audience.

A digital marketing company in China can help you create interesting content for your business niche and distribute content in the group. The marketing agency can start discussions, share news updates, share the relevant study with the community to establish leadership for your brand, and create followers. 

Creating some fancy marketing campaign won’t get your audience in China. The Chinese digital marketing space includes diverse digital platforms, and you need help from China digital marketing agency to put your marketing initiatives together.

Reasons Should You Invest in Baidu Advertising

Online advertising tools such as video ads, social media ads, and display ads help you reach the right audience. If you aim to reach Chinese consumers, you need to invest in online advertising in China’s largest search platform. Here are some reasons why you should invest in Baidu advertising (adstochina.westwin.com/Baidu-Advertising).

Higher Search Engine Market Share

People are known to use a search engine to find relevant information about products and services before buying them. If you look at China’s Internet landscape, Baidu is the largest search platform in China, holding more than 78% search engine market share. Baidu has reached 174 million daily active users which show the importance of the search engine platform for advertising activities.

Baidu PPC- Reach Your Potential Customers with Ease

Baidu PPC advertising is a cost-effective way to drive traffic to your website. As the advertising model’s name suggests, you have to only pay to Baidu when your ad is clicked. Baidu offers you flexibility in your ad spend regardless of your ad budget. Unlike other marketing strategies, Baidu PPC allows you to reach and engage the Chinese audience with ease.

When Chinese people search for a product or service, Baidu PPC will show relevant information in search ads. The search engine also displays alliance website banners on the search results page. Without a doubt, Baidu PPC ads can increase the visibility of your brand also drive traffic to your website. Here are some advantages of Baidu PPC that can take your business to the pinnacle of success.

Develop Brand Awareness

Search engine optimization of your website on Baidu can take months to show results. It also means you would be losing customers until your website reaches the top position. When you invest in Baidu advertising, your brand enjoys instant visibility to a relevant audience. Baidu offers different types of advertising tools that help develop brand awareness in lesser time.

You can benefit from a diverse range of advertising products like information feed ads, text search ads, display ads, Brand Zone, and Baidu Knowledge.

Convert Your Buyers

The leads in the last stage of the marketing funnel aren’t looking for information sources. They are more inclined to click on display ads that provide them a solution. According to Wordstream research, 65% of display ads receive clicks from people who are ready to buy your products and services.

Drive Profit

Baidu PPC gives you a better ROI than other advertising verticals. Baidu has a strong focus on paid adverts, and you can see up to 7 ads ahead of any organic search results. You can also optimize your Baidu advertising campaign on a daily basis to make the best possible use of the available budget.

Granular Control over Advertising

Baidu PPC account offers you granular control over advertising spends. You have five levels of account control, which include Account level, Campaign level, Ad-group level, Keyword and URL level, and Ad copy level. The PPC account offers several unique features like target region, run times, daily budgets, and negative keywords. All these features allow you to manage your advertising campaigns smoothly and get a high ROI.

Baidu’s Industry Target Feature

When you invest in Baidu PPC, you get access to advanced Baidu advertising tools like Industry target features, which allows you to acquire traffic from industry leaders and your competitors. It’s easy to use, and all you have to do is add a competitor’s website to the campaign. Baidu search technology automatically identifies a similar audience to the websites and show your display ads for relevant keywords.

Baidu’s Industry Target feature is powered by a deep study of Chinese audience definition and their behavior and data collected over the years. Baidu has a mature database and advanced algorithm that allows Baidu to identify users who have urgent needs and users who might need your product and services in the near future.

This feature not only avoids direct keyword bidding wars that escalate the prices, but it also helps you target the most relevant audiences.

Improve organic Listing

Baidu PPC also helps in improving your organic listing. The Industry Target feature also shows the image of your website alongside your SEO listing on the search results page.

So have you started Baidu advertising?

The Importance of Brand Strategy in a Successful Business

It doesn’t matter where your business is in terms of its development. Whether it’s a start-up, a small business, or a mid-to-large-sized business on its way to branching off and becoming a corporation, it has taken a lot of work to get to where you are. And that amount of work didn’t just pull itself together. Your business is unique. Your market is unique—the fact that you’ve discovered a niche in the market that can be fulfilled by your business necessarily means that your business is doing one-of-a-kind things. It isn’t a cookie cutter business that you took out of a box and followed the instructions to piece together. You’ve had to use creativity, ingenuity, a lot of hard work, and a lot of dedication to make your business into something that matters to the world—so why should your brand strategy follow a cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all approach? You’ve already proven your business to be unique, so why not find a brand strategy that offers the uniqueness and creativity that got your business to where it is in the first place?

What is a brand strategy?

You may not think the idea of a brand strategy will apply to your specific business. Maybe you sell services instead of products, or maybe you sell products that have their own brands. It may seem a little off the mark, but your business is its own brand. The products and services you sell have your business’s name attached to them, and that means they are a part of your brand. It’s what makes your business recognizable. The more satisfied customers you have, the more reliable your brand becomes; but you don’t just want to rely on the word of mouth of satisfied customers to market your brand for you. You want to be active about marketing your brand in the right way—and that means in the right way for your specific business within your specific niche market and demographic. That’s where brand strategy comes into play.

Brand strategy is about more than just establishing the identity of your brand; it’s about creating a long-term plan that anticipates the development and future direction of your brand—as well as your business and its specific goals. It factors in things like potential developments, consumer needs, expanding markets, and competitive market environments, to name a few features. Essentially, brand strategy is an investment in insuring your brand for both short-term and long-term success, no matter which direction your business—or the economy—takes.

How can brand strategy help?

Brand strategy can help you learn more about the true identity of your business—and it can help you plan for the direction it may be headed in. Proper brand strategy follows one key concept when it comes to securing your brand for the future: the customer. A good brand strategy will work with and engage your customers in order to learn what your business identity is to them, what expectations they have, and what their needs are. This will help you focus on the brand identity that will guarantee you success within the expectations and needs of your clients, and it will help you learn how to market that identity towards a more successful future.

Brand strategy doesn’t just take your current business identity into consideration. It also considers things like:

  • Brand identity: brand strategy takes into consideration the needs covered by your brand, along with market trends, in order to anticipate where your brand is headed. Creating a strong brand doesn’t just help your business connect with today’s consumers; it helps you connect with tomorrow’s clients, too.
  • Brand architecture: brand strategy takes into account pricing structure models and sales trends in order to create a plan that can accommodate and grow alongside your business. A brand isn’t as effective if it’s only functional today; it has to apply to your business tomorrow, too.
  • Brand roadmaps: brand strategy doesn’t just anticipate market trends and the needs of your clients when it comes to strategizing for the future; it also takes your goals into consideration in order to construct a brand that can carry you towards those goals faster.
  • Creativity: a good brand strategy will be customized to your specific business’s unique needs and characteristics—and it will be able to apply the same creative processes that have gotten your business so far already.

If you’re looking to invest in the current and future success of your business, there is no better insurance than brand strategy.

Variable Data Printing – How it Benefits Your Business?

The important role that variable data printing (VDP) plays in business communication often remains underestimated. In these days when customizing emails according to the recipient’s expectation and responsiveness has widely been regarded as a smart business move, there are not too many viable alternatives to variable data printing for achieving that. Variable data printing lets your direct mail pieces get segmented and customized as per the interest and typical personality attributes of the recipient.

For businesses this has been perceived as a wonder tool for achieving higher responsiveness and effect through a direct mail marketing initiative.  But personalizing business mail and making business appeal to the interest of the mail recipients is just one major side of the benefits. There are too many other aspects as well. From allowing businesses utilizing customized URLs and QR codes to offering more attention grabbing effect through your email, variable data printing offers an array of surprising benefits.

Variable data printing by allowing the business to make use of personalized URLs and QR codes it facilitates easy and innovative way of customer interaction with the business brand. In one way, this makes the customer experience better and on the other hand, this result in strong customer relations that will further provide a boost to ROI and other business specific outcomes. Moreover, by these personalized measures the business can effectively measure and track response rate from the mail recipients and customers. These days when measuring responsiveness is an important attribute to ensure effective business analytics, variable printing services can really play a major role.

Variable data printing for some time grabbed the attention of email marketers for its huge potential in customizing and personalizing to reap an array of business benefits. Through this tool you can now draw more attention to your emails and make them appealing to your target customers and audience. Let us now have a quick look at some of the key business benefits of variable printing.

1.  A boost to business return by the use of mail listing data

The mail list tells a lot about prospects and the places they stay, their social positions, occupation and other personality attributes, he can customize the mails to grab more attention and garner effective results and to do this variable data printing can be a great tool. You can create a custom mail copy and information as per the recipient’s interest and other personality traits. By adjusting the mail information as per data like where people live, their marital status, their profession, etc. You can make your marketing address more accurate as far as grabbing their interest is concerned. If making the mail more relevant and appealing is your objective, then variable data printing is the right tool to achieve that.

2.  Customizing the return address and business phone number

For some recipients offering nearby return address or more location specific contact details is important. A business can have several offices or stores and now while driving mail marketing campaign give attention for offering them information regarding stores and locations that are close to the recipient’s address or preferred by him. In this way, you can offer your customers different contact points, contactable persons and phone numbers and thus as a whole can increase the chances of responsiveness. Variable printing just lets you achieve this by offering customization in contact information as well.

3.  Using custom fonts and stylization to grab more attention

Thanks to variable printing data each and every different recipient name, address and other information on the mailing list can be printed with separate fonts. This provides each mail a customized tailor made look and furthermore, with the addition of customized stylization the mail looks very personal and eye catching. With the separate font and design scheme accompanying each mail it creates a corporate identity and make recipients feel as more attended by the sender of the business mail.

4.  Using color to your advantage

By utilizing color shades effectively in the print layout and in the copy you can further make the mail more interesting for the eyes. Regular black and white printing color often does not create any impression at first look just that looks too common. On the other hand, appropriate use of color not only just touches the vision, but it can also effectively complement the brand identity. Using color wisely you can also highlight certain important parts of your mail and can grab quick attention to some necessary parts.

5.  Now incorporating images and maps becomes easier

Thanks to the freedom of customization provided by variable data printing services you can now incorporate images and local maps to your mails to the advantage of your recipient. You can incorporate images that are more relevant to the respective recipient and can offer local map of the store as per the location of the mail recipient.