Month: November 2022

Ways Technology Improves the Watch Business

The watch industry is experiencing a renaissance, with new brands and customers emerging. Since the demand for watches has increased again, manufacturers are investing in production and research facilities to expand their businesses. 

Whether you’re an investor for automatic Watch Winder, analyst or just someone who loves watches, keeping tabs on the industry can be challenging. The watch industry is fragmented; there are regional and brand-specific suppliers as well as distributors that work with several different manufacturers. If you’re looking to invest in this growing business, here are three ways technology improves the watch business.

Better Supply Chain Management

One of the main drivers of the growth in watch sales is the rise of the online shopping experience globally. Digital buyers are more selective than ever and can visit a range of different sites to find their perfect watch. That’s why brands have invested in online experiences that are completely tailored to the watch buying journey.

A New Platform for Brands to Engage with Customers

Along with the rise in quality, social media has given watch brands a new way to engage with customers. The top-end brands are investing in influencers, as well as hiring in-house social media managers, to create a consistent and authentic voice. 

As well as creating a consistent voice between brand representatives, social media calendars are being used to showcase new products and interactive campaigns. This allows brands to create a sense of urgency around certain products. It’s not just about brand awareness — it’s also about more sales. 

The best brands are using their online presence to drive people to their website and driving sales through their e-commerce platforms.

Digital Marketing and e-Commerce

E-commerce platforms have been a major driver of sales in the watch industry. The top-end, luxury brands have been investing in e-commerce platforms to drive sales through their own websites. This has allowed brands to discount products, creating a sense of urgency around certain products. 

Selling directly to customers through their own websites means that brands don’t have to split their profit with distributors. This has made way for lower-cost watches being sold online. Online marketing is another area where brands are investing. They are using digital advertising platforms to drive traffic to their websites. This is a quick and effective way to drive sales.

How to Market with TikTok

While the average TikTok creator is from Generation Z, TikTok gradually attracts a broader user base. According to recent statistics, approximately 38% of TikTok users in the United States are over 30. TikTok marketing could be a terrific outlet for your brand if you operate a business. Even in 2020, small to medium-sized companies face limited business rivalry on the social platform.

You could compare utilizing TikTok for business to using Instagram Stories. They are not intended to promote sales but to demonstrate your company’s essence. You can reach more followers if you’re a brand or a business with social boosting services.

Tiktok-branded-hashtag-challenge

 A terrific first TikTok video for business owners is introducing themselves and their company. Remember that the more personal your company appears, the more people will identify with it. Tiktok Marketing is about creating brand trust rather than selling.

Simply sharing fascinating facts about your staff and a little about your company helps folks get to know you. Another effective strategy is communicating your brand missions or the most critical aspects of your small business. This helps potential customers understand what motivates your company.

Collaboration with an influencer is another technique to sell your brand on TikTok. The rise of the TikTok influencer demonstrates that the platform’s users value the content they provide. Every TikTik regular has a favorite content producer.

You can look at the most popular hashtag challenge and see if there is a TikTok influencer with whom you can collaborate. A “branded hashtag challenge” is when a company sponsors a hashtag and challenges users to generate content around the theme.

A TikTok influencer’s average engagement on a branded hashtag challenge is 8.5%. With over 80 million users in the United States, that is an ample TikTok marketing opportunity.

TikTok’s impact on brands

The NBA has almost 13 million followers and shares game clips and celebrity player appearances. With 6.5 million followers and climbing, the NFL is following suit.

Chiptole, a fast-food restaurant, was another early adopter of the technology. Most of their content highlights the dishes they serve, but they also host popular competitions for TikTok users to post humorous videos of themselves visiting the locations.

TikTok is being used by media businesses such as The Washington Post and NBC to provide content previews and highlight the personalities of their reporters through behind-the-scenes films. Brands that were early adopters of TikTok are reaping the benefits of high engagement.

How to Promote Your Business on TikTok

TikTok began showing ads to some of its users in early 2019. And it’s been a massive success for the corporation. According to TechCrunch/Apptopia, TikTok’s Q4 2019 revenue increased by more than 300% over the same period last year.

A TikTok commercial is a “pre-roll” (similar to the ads that appear before YouTube videos) that lasts between 10 and 15 seconds. Like YouTube, ads can be bypassed in a few seconds, and advertisers pay for impressions.

Brand takeover ads are full-screen, five-second static or animated ads that appear when a user launches the TikTok app for the first time. These brand takeover ads direct users to a webpage or TikTok account. This ad type has a limited number of sponsors every day in each country and can cost up to $50,000 per campaign, according to reports. Auto-playing full-screen ads that appear between user-generated content videos in-feedThese ads, like Instagram story ads, will direct consumers to a landing page or an app store.

Branded hashtag competitions

These are themes created by brands or corporations linked to a marketed hashtag. The idea is to entice users to produce and share videos based on the subject. These videos are a component of a brand takeover ad or an in-feed native ad bundle.

Because the service is still being tested, running ads on the TikTok app requires an application, and as a result, there needs to be accurate data on TikTok advertising rates. According to some agencies, TikTok in-feed advertisements are marketed for $10 per impression and demand a $6,000 minimum campaign budget.

According to TikTok, more than 90% of platform users visit multiple times daily, making it appealing for brands whose demographics match the TikTok audience.

Using a Solar Park to Prevent Flooding

Solar Park

 

If you take a walk between the growers’ fields in Boskoop, you only walk a decimeter above the surface of the countless ditches. This is not far from the lowest point in the Netherlands, in the southwest of the Green Heart. Peter Captein has been growing trees and flowering plants in this area since the seventies. In recent years, the floods have become increasingly severe for him and his colleagues in the area, he says. He even spends more on water damage restoration like what people have in Temecula.

Difficult years for growers

“The other day in 2018, when you saw the flower pots floating around in the fields. It was quite a mess, terrible. Then you get root rot and you have to throw those plants away,” says Captein. “It doesn’t go that far every year. But even if it rains heavily for one day, the aisles flood. No meteorologist can predict when that will happen.” In short, in recent years there has been no question of a relaxed existence for the grower. “I had just turned sixty in that period and did not yet have a successor for my company. And wondered how long I had to continue with this heavy work.”

You didn’t have to. Through the municipality of Alphen aan den Rijn, Captein came into contact with two sustainable entrepreneurs who were looking for a new project. Their motto: creating a sustainable living environment for communities throughout the Netherlands.

A floating solar park: handy in the sun and in the rain

Three years later, the plans have become reality. Part of Captein’s land has become a large puddle on which a floating solar park shimmers. No more plants that require heavy work every day, but a green energy generator. The water is about a meter deep on a dry day; in the case of heavy showers, it can rise another meter. Then the water flows in from the surrounding ditches that are connected to the basin.

Making the municipality climate neutral

Captein leases the three-hectare solar park to Zonnevijver Boskoop Project BV. Here, 7,700 panels generate enough electricity to cover the annual electricity needs of a thousand households. In addition, the park, with a capacity of 3.4 MWp, helps the municipality to become climate neutral.

“The double use of space is the great thing about this project. The fact that we had a puddle excavated and in this way created new water storage – and then installed solar panels on it, that is unique in the Netherlands,” says Willem de Lint, entrepreneur in the solar and wind sector.

New business model

The floating solar park in Boskoop also stands out because it does not stand out. By digging out a lowering in the ground, you will only see the panels when you stand next to them. “People don’t always think windmills or solar panels look good and the installations don’t fit into the landscape. We also wanted to do that differently with this project,” says De Lint, who graduated in ecology and landscape architecture.

By digging away the existing soil, a ‘completely new business model has emerged on this piece of land’, says De Lint’s business partner Casper Wissink: “A model that is also more future-proof than floriculture.”

 

ALSO READ: 7 Technological Advancements in the Dental Industry Today

 

Loan ASN Groenprojectenfonds

Since the summer of 2021, the park has been connected to the energy grid. The fact that the entrepreneurs would sell the electricity and have a profitable business model was a requirement for the ASN Groenprojectenfonds to provide a loan. With an investment of 2.2 million euros, the fund finances the lion’s share of the park, such as panels, cabling, and the anchors that ensure that the panels do not blow away.

The excavation of the lake is at the expense of the landowner Captein. If you can store enough water in case of rain and thunderstorms, you will receive a subsidy for emergency shelter. The new pond can absorb an additional 30,000 cubic meters in the event of flooding. In this way, the lake reduces the flood risk of the surrounding tree nurseries.

Higher risks

For Zonnevijver Boskoop there was only one floating solar park in the Netherlands. The technology is quite new and you don’t know exactly how weatherproof the park will be, says Rosemarijn van der Meij, fund manager ASN Groenprojectenfonds.

“The risks are higher than with an ordinary solar park. Because the panels float on pontoons, the water and wind can cause unforeseen wear and tear. But that was no reason for us not to invest.”

According to the fund manager, the park serves both the climate and the people in the area. “In a place that is very low, flooding is a major problem for residents and entrepreneurs. These types of projects make the growers more future-proof. The new emergency shelter is also a good solution for the water board.”

For financing, De Lint and Wissink also turned to other large banks. “There you see a big difference, they have a lot of clauses and want to know exactly what your return will be,” says De Lint, who has been investing in green energy projects for fifteen years. “At ASN, they have a track record of this type of investment. So they have a better understanding of what the risks are in practice and how you can cover them. That’s why we gained confidence in each other.”

Researching biodiversity

ASN Groenprojectenfonds considers it important that energy projects also promote biodiversity. In this way, too, the energy park in Boskoop is interesting; it is unique in the sense that the basin has been specially excavated for the floating panels.

Fund manager Van der Meij: “It is difficult to calculate the contribution of a project to biodiversity in advance, but we assume that valuable nature will arise at the edges of the pond. What is going to grow? Our hope is that researchers will soon draw interesting conclusions.”