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SWOT: MarketDial
The strengths of MarketDial are the usability and ease in which clients can navigate the website, and it provides personalized tests based on the client's profiles. Its weaknesses include the lack of testimonials that show proving to potential clients it is not a scam, the low engagement on social media, and a missing FAQ on their website. MarketDial has the opportunity to increase its social media engagement, develop an online reputation through testimonials or clients bar, implement an active blog, and publish a FAQ that answers customer's inquiries. The threats MarketDial faces stem from its direct competitors like Emarsys and SiteSpect, which have more engagement on social media, followers, funds, and testimonials.
STRENGTHS
- MarketDial's website design is clean and professional, making customers feel secure and confident. The website for QA, which is one of the A/B tests leading companies, has a loaded and scattered design that does not facilitate a peaceful customer interaction.
- MarketDial offers A/B testing tools for offline commerce. The advantage of these tests is that clients can arrange them in just five minutes. This process prevents clients from becoming confused when dealing with big data.
- Echoing the sentiment that the majority of customers feel regarding big data, MarkeDial's motto is"Data Scientist Not Required."
- The company also offers its services for any retail function, something that makes them an inclusive business.
- These are some facilities that come with carrying out a test with MarketDial: The process to upload data is automatic, so clients do not have to perform it manually. MarketDial performs a market evaluation to add consumer demographics and possible competitive locations. If the client has a store attribute analysis, MarketDial also works with it. There is a broad assortment of applications that satisfy diverse client profiles. All data is highly-protected on their AWS servers.
- MarketDial initiated operations in the year 2016, and in just two years of its foundation, the company demonstrated to Crosslink Capital its potential and raised $7.5 million with series A funding.
- Another advantage of utilizing MarketDial is that it has a high usability rate, diminishing the usage of additional tools like other companies such as QA.
- The solutions MarketDial offers generates both short and long-term results.
- MarketDial was recognized as a fast-growing company, as well as one that uses brain power.
- MarketDial recently partnered with the REGO Restaurant Group to improve decision-making and obtain new business initiatives.
WEAKNESSES
- On the MarketDial website, there are no testimonials or reviews of their services. In the digital age, this indicates a significant flaw, since most large companies have digital evidence that verifies that they are not a fraud.
- Monthly visitors to the website have declined sharply. In January 2019, MarketDial received 11,000 visitors and only 374 in the month of May. These types of events drive many customers away as a person's initial reaction when observing those figures is to believe that the company is no longer operating and that it is withdrawn.
- On Twitter, MarketDial has just 112 followers, which is very low for a company. In modern times, companies should have more than 100,000 followers on social media to demonstrate validity.
- Only seven people have liked MarketDial's Facebook page, which is a concern.
- MarketDial has a blog, but it does not publish content often, and it is difficult for the client to locate that section, which is under the name resources. Furthermore, the last time it published content was on August 7.
- MarketDial also does not have a FAQ section on their website or online support.
OPPORTUNITIES
- Social Media: MarketDial needs to master social media. As mentioned in the challenges section, its online presence is atrocious, with less than 1,000 followers on Twitter and Facebook. This issue has a solution if the company is open to new ways of working, as it can increase the number of followers with several methods such as: interactions, offering online support via Twitter, or sharing small informative excerpts from its blogs to reach more consumers. (analysis based on the weakness section).
- MarketDial is a reputable company, but the average consumer does not explore for market reports, a comparative analysis, or statistics to ensure they are not a scam. The average client seeks a company with testimonials and reviews or will pay for company services because of positive word-of-mouth. While the last method works, it is important to provide testimonials on the company website to engage individuals from different areas. The solution to this issue is to create a testimonials section, and fill it with experiences from past clients. (analysis based on the weakness section)
- Businesses owners love to read articles that help them cope with situations that occur daily, which are the types of articles that MarketDial publishes. The only problem is the frequency. Increasing the publishing time could further engage potential clients. (analysis based on the weakness section)
- The importance of a frequently asked question page lies in the usability of the website. MarketDial's website is very client-friendly, but clients have concerns that require answers. As MarketDial does not have online support, and the only way to contact them is through e-mail, it is fundamental to incorporate a FAQ section to avoid ruining the customer experience. (analysis based on the weakness section)
THREATS
- Emarsys, a direct competitor of MarketDial, has more followers on Twitter (5,100) and has tweeted 143 times in the last 30 days, while MarketDial tweeted only eight times. As the evidence indicates, Emarsys has an advantage regarding social media engagement. They have also raised $22.3 million in funding and are ranked number 87,213 on Alexa.
- Also, Emarsys has testimonials on its website, as well as an active blog.
- A software review company is responsible for showing people unaltered opinions about software companies. The leaders in this space are TrustRadius, SearchMan, GoodFirm, and Capterra. MarketDial does not appear in any of them, which take us to the same point, a company without testimonials creates lack of trust among future clients.
- For a business seeking search engine optimization, the closer the company is to the top in Alexa ranking, the better. This is not the case with MarketDial as it is listed number 7,731,228 in the ranking.
- According to Crunchbase, SiteSpect is another direct competitor to MarketDial. The company has raised $13 million in total funding, and it offers personalized tests to clients, it has 10,230 followers on Twitter, 1,806 followers on Facebook, and an exceptional website with a very professional and clean design, along with a big clients bar.
Research Strategy:
Our research began by searching for existing analyses on MarketDial, however, this approach was not fruitful. We then visited the company's official website and observed the limited amount of articles available about MarketDial, which helped us determine its strengths.
To identify weaknesses of the company, we had to perform an analysis with the available information by comparing an internal and external point of view.
For the opportunities, we used the weaknesses and strengths of the company since there was no publicly available information. We want to highlight that the insights available on MarketDial online concerns company data and some recent news with little to no connection to relevant information such as its weakness, threats, or opportunities.
MarketDial appears to have no negative trace on the internet. What is interesting is that positive opinions of the company are rather narrow. For this reason, we had to perform another analysis to determine its threats. Using sources such as Crunchbase and Craft, we were able to identify MarketDial's competitors and determine some of its threats.