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How To Improve Your Business Productivity While Working From Home

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article |Business Productivity|How To Improve Your Business Productivity While Working From HomeWorking from home can be challenging for some because there are so many things that may need your attention. From your children to household chores, your productivity may be suffering. If you are looking for ways to improve your business productivity, here are some helpful tips that will help you get through the day getting everything done on your to-do list.

Be More Efficient

Think really hard about how your business is running. Are there any opportunities for some processes to be streamlined? For example, if you own a commercial dash cam company, installing fleet tracking dash cams can be beneficial to improving your delivery times as some of these come with GPS features. Maybe you are spending too much time answering emails in which case a simple day restructure will help you move more efficiently. Ultimately, it depends on what your business’ short-term and long-term tasks are.

Know When To Delegate

This is something a lot of great managers and executives understand. You cannot do everything yourself. There is not enough time in the day. Delegating allows you to focus on the most important tasks for your day while someone else can handle the less pressing, but just as important tasks. Delegating can feel uneasy because you are essentially giving someone else the responsibility of pulling through.

Doing this not only improves your productivity but it also benefits your employees by giving them a sense of achievement and direction in their careers.

Cut Out Distractions

Distractions are typically the main culprits when it comes to business productivity. Things like social media and texting can be major time wasters. You want to make sure that you and your employees are utilizing the work hours efficiently. While you do not want to implement a no-phone policy, you can instead opt for frequent breaks. Taking lots of breaks will reduce your chances of getting distracted.

Use The Right Tools

Thank goodness for technology and apps. There are tons of time and productivity tracking apps that you can use to help keep you productive. These apps help you stay accountable for your time for the day, making sure that you are getting most out of the workday. You can also use collaboration tools like Google Drive and Trello to keep track of your projects and those contributing to those projects. Google Drive streamlines the collaboration process, allowing you to share things in real-time as they are being updated.

Keep Your Employees Up-To-Date With Training

Set your employees up for success by offering training that allows them to develop their productivity skills. Sometimes the process of hiring someone new can be nerve-wracking because this is a time typically when things start falling through the cracks. The best way to avoid this is to make sure all your employees, new and old, are properly trained. Training greatly benefits not just the employer but also the employees as well as improving greater efficiency and productivity.

How to Successfully Organize Virtual Events

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Virtual Events|How to Successfully Organize Virtual EventsOrganizing a virtual event requires the utmost care and attention. You need to promote the event, engage participants, create memorable moments for everyone present, and eventually prove that the event was a success.

In this article, we’ll provide some tips for organizing successful and memorable virtual events.

What Virtual Event Organizing Entails

Virtual events are built around data, participant engagement, and content. They contain the same elements as other types of events.

These include:

  • Event registration
  • Live presentation content
  • Live audio/video
  • Event website
  • Live polling
  • Note-taking
  • Question and answer
  • Interactive video conferencing
  • Recorded content
  • Feedback surveys

With all these elements in place, you can start planning your event.

Fundamentals of Virtual Event Planning

When hosting a virtual event, keep in mind that your attendees want to be informed, included, and entertained.

Your event will need adequate marketing. Without targeted, aggressive promotion, attendance will suffer.

In virtual settings, content rules. Create engaging sessions with powerful keynotes tailored to your participants. Provide options that are relevant to each participant to keep them engaged.

Lastly, you’ll need to capture attendee data and measure engagement, so you can prove your event ROI and the event’s success.

Planning Your Virtual Event

With the right tools and proper planning, you’ll create opportunities for all involved, including yourself, to forge meaningful business connections.

At your event, entrepreneurs and businesses will meet potential business leads. When planning, you should have inspiring speakers, a strong marketing strategy, informative and relevant content, and the opportunity for participants to network – but with some valuable twists.

These tips will help you plan for the event:

  • Gather all the information you need. List and secure resources on time.
  • Inform participants on time and follow-up with reminders, so no one is left out.
  • Send out materials on time, so participants can prepare.
  • Allow and prepare yourself and the attendees for some adjustments in the schedule.

How to Simplify Event Planning

Organizing a successful event comes with its own challenges. Even if you have planned out every detail, some road bumps are inevitable.
A good plan of action can help you overcome any challenges. Let’s look at some best practices to approach event planning.

Break Down the Event into Small Tasks

Breaking down the workload into small tasks is an effective practice to handle the organization. If you write all your tasks down, it’ll be easy to distribute the workload and simplify the decision-making process.

Once you conquer your schedule and to-do list, everything will be ready on time, and your team will organize accordingly. You need to have exceptional time management skills so that you can supervise the progress and make sure everything is going according to plan.
You can create a clear time table and share it with all parties involved to reduce any friction and delays.

Avoid Multitasking

Although an event planner is often perceived as someone always doing many tasks concurrently, you should avoid multitasking, especially at the planning stage. According to research, using multiple screens and devices is not good for your mental health.

Whenever you multitask, you’ll not only end up doing a few tasks but will also do them less efficiently. Focus on the most urgent tasks with the biggest impact, and give it your undivided attention.

After tackling the “big” things first, like settling on the site and time, booking speakers, and other essentials, smaller things will fall into place more naturally.

Build a Collaborative Team

Organizing a successful event depends on collaboration and coordination. If you can’t rely on your team to do their share of the work, you’ll also be forced to assume their duties, such as negotiating with suppliers, implementing the budget, and so on.

That’s why it’s important to diligently distribute tasks and deadlines, so everyone knows what their duties are.

Accept That Something Can Go Wrong

Watching the organization and event unfold according to plan is a joy, but things rarely go precisely as you envisioned.

Understand that you can fail, even in the tiniest detail, and you have to embrace the concept. As an experienced organizer, you should be calm when something goes wrong.

You may have a backup plan that’ll prevent any major fallback, but you cannot have a backup plan for everything. By embracing failure, you’ll stand tall and strong without blaming yourself. Take the failure as a lesson to make things right in your future events.

Final Word

A virtual event can be a powerful marketing tool. As an event planner, you need to deliver the most exceptional experience to all participants. To achieve this, you’ll have to vigorously follow your plan and schedule and make sure that all parties involved are on the same page.

A successful event is an event that provides value to your audience and participants. If you plan your event with that value in mind, you’ve set the foundations for an event that participants will remember for a long time.

About the Author

Joe Peters is a Baltimore-based freelance writer and an ultimate techie. When he is not working his magic as a marketing consultant, this incurable tech junkie devours the news on the latest gadgets and binge-watches his favorite TV shows. Follow him on @bmorepeters

3 Budget-Friendly Ways to Boost Brand Awareness

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Boost brand awareness|3 Budget-Friendly Ways to Boost Brand AwarenessAny small business wants to boost brand awareness, but often they do not have the budget to create and launch a nationwide marketing campaign. The pennies are simply too tight to justify spending them on something that may or may not work. For a small business, substantial investments can often be a risk. So what if there was another way? The good news is that there is another way, and even small businesses can boost brand awareness without chipping away too much of their budget.

Freebies

No matter how much money you have or how successful your business is, a freebie is a freebie. For small businesses, this is a fantastic way to spread the word about your business.

There are a variety of ways you can do this, too. From pens and pencils to personalized water bottles to car air fresheners, your logo can travel across the country, letting everybody know who you are and maybe enticing them to use your service.

Freebies are a subtle marketing technique that will trigger recognition for anyone who has come across your logo before. From here, you can expect to see a remarkable boost in engagement, and you can find an increase in business, too.

Guest Blog Posts

Guests posts from founders and CEOs are a superb way of letting people in your industry know who you are and confirm that you understand what you’re talking about. As a business owner, you should have studied your industry, and hopefully, you have plenty of insights on how to improve the way things are run. With a guest post, you can get your message out there.

You can also use these guest posts to conjure up interest in your brand, especially if you have a unique story. You can write about your struggles and how you overcame them and provide advice for other businesses who may experience the same problems when trying to get their fortunes off the ground.

Work With Local Businesses

Local interest is vital for cementing a small business as something to look out for, so you must take advantage of local companies to spread the word. There will be a variety of established companies in your area, and rather than try to compete with them, work with them in events and discount partnerships that will be mutually beneficial.

As locals will already trust these established businesses, they will also trust their judgment about you. By offering discounts and deals by showing flyers or coupons picked up in other stores, you can see an increase in awareness and profits, which will help establish you. All you need to do is prove that yours is a business worth using and provide a quality service to ensure that you generate the brand loyalty you need for growth.

Spreading the Word

Failing to boost brand awareness means that your little startup will remain little. Entrepreneurship is all about innovation, though, and by considering the potential for budget-friendly brand awareness ventures, you can witness an evident improvement. By increasing awareness through these budget-friendly means, you can experience an increase in profits, which will allow your startup to redistribute these funds towards more prominent campaigns and see even more growth.

Standing Out in eCommerce: It’s Not As Easy As You Think!

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |eCommerce|Standing Out in eCommerce: It's Not As Easy As You Think!The last few months have taught us a lot about business. Specifically, they’ve shown us which business models lend themselves well to change, and which do not. At a time when most of the consuming world has had to remain indoors, the retail sector in particular has had to face some particularly hard truths.

Many brick and mortar retailers, especially, have thought twice about embracing eCommerce. A prospect to which they may have been resistant for the longest time. Likewise, many who have long thought about trying their entrepreneurship may use this as the impetus they need to start their own eCommerce brand.

But in an era where the online marketplace is more bustling than ever, how do you stand out among legions of competitors? It’s not as easy as you may think. Here are some tips to get ahead.

Know what you’re selling and who you’re selling to

No matter how awesome your product is, it’s not a case of “if you build it, they will come”. You’ll need to carry out meticulous market research. You’ll need to know who you’re selling to, and why your product is appealing to them. This will inform virtually everything your eCommerce business does. It will inform your branding, your marketing and the product ranges you offer.

Invest in awesome UX

It goes without saying that you need a gorgeous website. A website that’s responsive and looks amazing both on a desktop computer and a mobile device. Your own app will also be a good idea if you expect to engage digitally savvy consumers.

However, looks aren’t everything when it comes with web design. You’ll also need to build in a satisfying and intuitive User Experience (UX) element. UX can drive sales, improve conversion rates and help you target shopping cart abandonment. An ecommerce agency will help you to get the most out of your website’s UX as well as ensuring that you make all the right impressions with the consumers who will be your loyal customers.

Have a great incentives / rewards scheme

In a time of stiff competition, it’s not enough to assume that your products are better than those of your competitors. Heck, depending on the consumer, it might not even matter. You need to provide an incentive for consumers to try your brand at the expense of your competitors. And if you’re targeting value-conscious consumers, your rewards / incentives scheme might just be your USP.

Ideally, it should encourage repeat custom and referrals, providing rewards both for customers who refer their friends, family and colleagues to your business and for the newly referred customer.

Embrace brand storytelling

Finally, it’s not enough to have clever marketing. Your branding needs to tell the audience a story. We human beings love stories. We’ve been using them since time immemorial to make sense of the world around us. Video platforms such as YouTube and, of course, your social channels can be a great way to tell stories that align with your brand, as well as providing a talking point that encourages engagement with your brand.

How To Operate When Consumer Confidence Is Low

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StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article |Customer Confidence|How To Operate When Consumer Confidence Is LowIt’s not easy running a business in the best of times, yet almost no one on this Earth would be liable to label 2020 as ‘the best of times’ so far. Unexpected and thorough societal change has caused many of us to change our habits, and this has rocked the economy and business world. Despite the fact that in some areas Covid-19 is starting to dwindle, or at least reduce in some capacity, consumer confidence is still relatively low. This is understandable.

However, as a business, we cannot simply accept this fact and wait until spending returns to normal levels. Normal levels may not be something we have the luxury of for some time. For that reason, it’s up to us as firms to encourage people to spend their money well, and to be confident and careful in our approach. We cannot use half-truths, or emotional appeals, or untoward suggestions to our clients or consumers in order to have them support us. Instead, we must get creative, but still offer our services and products in an authentic, reliable manner. With the following advice, we hope to help you get there:

Stay Honest & Open

Stay honest and open with your audience. They are fully aware that Covid-19 has caused industries to go through tough times, and they may also be going through them. It’s important not to approach this particular situation with deception or a sense of entitlement. It can be worth considering how you might gear yourself to these times and become more relevant as a result. For instance, it’s a small thing, but many supermarkets are now registered with food delivery services such as Uber Eats, and offer masks or other cleaning items as part of their library of products. Simple things like this can help you once again become a node on your audience’s map.

Improve Employee Communication

It’s important to have your employees become more effective and productive during this time. Important marketing ideas that float to the top, or the attentiveness it takes for them to deal with a support request in the best way never comes out of a vacuum. Using the best employee communication tools can help you share your formulated strategy. The business world moves fast, and now more than ever time is of the essence. Sometimes, helping your employees move through challenging times isn’t always forcing them to train harder or work longer hours, but rather removing the difficulties with which they may not be able to perform at 100%. Implementing excellent communication tools can serve as one of these removed difficulties.

Offer More Value

We need to encourage our audience to spend more and to have more confidence in their expenditure. This means that you need to offer more value. If they feel that there’s a timed element in potentially acquiring a great deal, your audience is more likely to go for it, or budget their spending to better acquire that which you have to offer. This doesn’t need to be seen as a deceptive practice, sometimes you may quite literally be offering an olive branch to help them engage with your items once more. You needn’t have to give out free gifts or make them follow your social media profiles to force this attitude to fruition. Simple acts, such as offering free delivery on all of your products, can go a long way in getting the ball rolling.

Invest In Marketing

Investing in marketing is also a valuable measure. This can seem counter to your spending aims right now. However, when we hope to start a stopped car, we turn the engine while pushing from behind. This extra ‘shunting’ action helps the engine to tick over and ultimately resume its operation. In other words, the old adage ‘you need to spend money to make money’ is relevant.

This may mean that you invest in subtle marketing methods, such as organic SEO advertising, or even take out social media banners or promoted posts as part of your new branding strategy. The importance of this is to remind people you’re still there, that you have something great to offer, and that you’ve missed your customers or clients. As people are slowly starting to return to work and potentially begin spending again, you can position yourself at the forefront in the line of companies chomping at the bit to once again establish their audience in the best possible way.

Relaunch / Motivate

Relaunching your brand or motivating your audience to take a second look can be a great idea. What have you learned from the lockdown, and what changes do you hope to make? Remember that people will have noticed how you treated your staff or processes as the world began locking down, and so now is the time to heal or promote your best actions as something worth supporting. For instance, you may relaunch your customer support line but now make the adjustment that people will be working from home to contend with their needs.

Sometimes, a full rebrand may help you change after the great cultural milestone that was this difficult experience. Some businesses will not want to invest in this, and that’s more than understandable, but even a new slogan can perform as well in this space. It’s important to bring some energy to your strategy. Your business must be seen as active, ready and welcoming. Despite the challenges we have all been through, we mustn’t limp along and slowly convince our audience to return. We must be seen as strong, able to take on business, and more than happy to stay relevant. This will inspire consumer confidence, and ultimately secure you the purchase you’re looking for.

Understand Your Place

Ultimately, if consumers aren’t confident, they’re not confident. We can pull out all of the stops on our end, but remember that people have suffered due to societal lockdown, and it’s worth keeping that in mind. This simple fact will help your strategy remain subtle, and that’s the most important measure of all.

With this advice, we hope you can learn to operate, even when consumer confidence is low.