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4 ways the online world can help you optimize the performance of your business

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In this digital age, it is vital that you are using technology to your advantage. This is the best way for you to make sure that you have the edge over your competitors. Online advancements have made it much easier for businesses to run effectively and efficiently. If you are determined not to be left behind, you will need to read on. Below are four ways that the online world can help you to optimize the performance of your business.

It can drive people towards your business

If you are hoping to reach a wide range of clients, you will need to invest heavily in the online profile of your business. In order to see a return on this investment, you should also think about the benefits of online marketing and secure the services of experienced webmasters. They will be able to design you a successful website and can help to drive people towards your digital platform. Instead of waiting for clients to come to you, a proactive approach will help you to achieve success.

It can allow your business to operate remotely

If you are spending a huge amount of money on your company premises, you should consider moving your operation online. With the help of the cloud, you could run your business remotely. This could save you both time and money. It could also help the different areas of your business to communicate with one another. Say you are taking orders through your website. If this information is entered manually, it may take a few hours before it connects with your stock list. However, a fully-optimized digital system will ensure that the two areas are working as one. This kind of approach will prevent you from making costly mistakes.

It can provide you with the essential tools for communicating with your staff

In the world of business, communication is key. It is vital that all of your staff are on board with your vision. That is why you should use the online world to interact with your workers. One option is to create an online schedule that all of your staff have access to. This will allow them to stay up to date with important events. Another option is to create a digital learning environment for your workers and fill it with resources that will help them to succeed in their roles.

It can save you time on your business meetings

Instead of traveling long distances for your business meetings, the online world provides you with a sensible alternative. Why not conduct your meetings via video chat or Skype? This is a fantastic way for you to save precious time and to focus your attention elsewhere. It will also help you to speed up the process of completing a project. Instead of waiting days, or even weeks, for an important meeting, you will have more freedom when it comes to arranging a suitable time.

Four Tips on Hiring an SEO Agency for Your Startup

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article
In today’s business market, online brand visibility is key to getting your new start-up off the ground. No matter what type of products or services you are selling, the type of audience that you are reaching out to or your goals for your business future, it’s important to have a strong online presence in order to reach success. A strong visibility in search engines and the ability to showcase your expertise and knowledge about your industry online is key to building your customer base and improving customer retention and sales. One of the first steps towards building a strong online presence is search engine optimisation; search engines are one of the first places that customers will go when they are trying to find a brand like yours.

We’ve put together some top tips to help you choose the right SEO agency for the job.

Tip #1. Ask for Recommendations:

As a business owner, you probably spend some time networking and building relationships with other business owners and influential, experienced individuals in your industry. One of the best ways to find a good SEO agency is to simply ask around within your business circles for recommendations – chances are that you know somebody who’s hired an SEO agency before, and will be able to point you in their direction if they were satisfied with their work and believe they’d be a good choice for your needs.

Tip #2. Check Out Portfolios:

Before you make a final decision on an SEO agency, it’s important to take a look at their portfolio of past work to determine whether they are offering the kind of things that you are after. Most good SEO agencies, will display a portfolio that prospective new clients can easily access to get an idea of the kind of work that they do on a regular basis. Take the Lexel SEO agency in London as an example. They have a section on their site dedicated to case studies which their audience can browse through. This is something you should be looking out for whenever you visit an SEO agency’s website.

It’s also a good idea to look at how well any prospective agencies have been doing their own SEO; are they high up in search engine rankings themselves?

Tip #3. Understand What You Need:

When choosing an SEO agency for your business, it’s important to have a list of needs and requirements in mind to ensure that you make the right decision. For example, if you run a smaller, local business, then you’re going to prefer an SEO agency that specialises in conducting local SEO and improving your brand’s visibility within your local area.

Tip #4. Conduct a Background Check:

Finally, once you have determined a few SEO agencies that seem like a good fit for your needs, it’s a good idea to take a closer look into them. One of the best ways of doing this is to get information from past clients regarding their experiences with the company. You can often do this by simply searching for online reviews – third-party websites are the best place to look since you’ll often find more honest and reliable reviews there.

Did you find these tips helpful? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Which Lead Generation Tactics Get the Best Results

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article
The worst number in business is one. If you have just one source of leads, it is only a question of time when the price per click goes up or the targeting options change or the viewership of the publication changes.

Because of this, you want to have several lead generation mechanisms in place. This way, if something happens to one of them, the other ones will continue working for you and generating new leads. This article will introduce you to five tactics you can use in your business.

1. Media Buying

Media buying is the process of negotiating and purchasing advertising time and space.

The secret to successful media buying lies in knowing your audience. One of the biggest mistakes a marketer can make is to advertise a niche offer to a broad market. The ad campaign will be expensive and the response will be small. This is not how you want to run your campaigns.

You need to know the age of your buyers, their gender, level of education, income, family status and interests. You also want to know what publications they read, how they spend their free time and what websites they visit.

Once you have this data, you can start making intelligent choices about how and where you can advertise to them. One of your goals should be to find media that are not obvious to your competition. This way you will be able to purchase space and time at reasonable rates (because the competition is not yet there) and be the only advertiser in your category in that media.

If there are certain media that you would like to use for advertisements, but can’t afford, call them or email them and tell them how much you can pay. Often, you’ll be able to get a last-minute offer if one of their advertisers pulls out and they have some free time or space. Many media are very negotiable as to how much they will sell advertising for. This is not something they advertise upfront, but if you negotiate, you will often be able to get a great deal.

2. Affiliates

Affiliate marketing is a great way to market products and services because in affiliate marketing you don’t have to pay for advertising upfront and you don’t have any risks.

Typically, you pay for advertising or lead generation activities first. These activities generate leads. Then, you have to do the work to convert the leads into paying customers. If the work is successful, only then you get your money back and a return on your investment.

This is not how things work in affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketers do all the work for you. In exchange, you pay them a percentage of the sales or a pre-agreed amount per sale for all the sales that they make.

The best way to use affiliates is to scale your sales systems that are already working. Nobody wants to pay money to test something that is not proven. While you may get affiliates to test your offers, if they lose money, they will not work with you again. If, however, you have a system that works and need more leads or need to convert more leads, then working with affiliates is a great way to go. You will make more money and your affiliates will make money, which will make them want to work again with you in the future.

3. Social Media Marketing

Today there are all kinds of social media, from Pinterest to Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn. However, this does not mean that you have to be everywhere. You need to be where your customers are. If you are selling a consumer product, you probably do not need to be on LinkedIn. If you are a high-end executive recruitment boutique, then being on Pinterest may not be a good strategy for you.
Find out where your customers spend their time. Then, get in front of them.

The good news is that social media today offer a variety of tools and ways to reach prospects and existing customers.

Using Facebook Pixel or Google Tag Manager, you can mark everyone who visits your website or certain pages on your website. You can also create audiences based on sequences of pages that people visit, videos they watch, elements of pages that they click on and parts of the pages they scroll to. Then, you can retarget these visitors with custom ads on social media and other websites. The opportunities for marketers today are virtually unlimited.

4. SMS

SMS or text messaging can be a very effective way to target customer but you need to be very careful with how you use it. Today most people use text messaging to communicate with their friends and family. They don’t get a lot of advertising messages via text. For this reason, you want to only text them about something important. Reminders typically fall into the important category and work really well. For example, you can send a reminder about a webinar. You can also send a reminder about a demo or a sales call that you have coming up.

You can also offer your existing customers to notify them via text about special sales and events.

At the same time, sending regular updates and marketing messages via text messaging is probably not a good idea. Most people check their text messages very frequently and if you are sending them messages that they don’t find valuable, they may feel as if you are spamming them and interrupting them with no good reason.

5. Ringless Voicemail

Ringless voicemail is a relatively new technology, which is why it is extremely effective.

Ringless voicemail works only will cellphones. According to studies, over 90% of adult Americans own a cellphone, which means that you can reach virtually any person with ringless voicemail marketing.

Ringless voicemail works by completely bypassing cellular networks. It contacts the cellular provider directly via a business landline call and drops a message on the server of the cellular provider. The provider then moves the message to the server space of the recipient and notifies the recipient about the message. This way there is no call made to the recipient, no charges to the recipient and no interruptions.

When the recipient checks his or her voicemail, he or she can listen to the message. The message can be as long or as short as the sender likes. This means that you can create ringless voicemails that are really effective.

A ringless voicemail can have options that connect the recipient to a sales person or drive the recipient to a website. By using these options you can measure the ROI from your ringless voicemail campaigns and make sure that you are spending your marketing dollars wisely.

7 Things You Should Never Underestimate In Business

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article
Being in business can be a lot of fun. When you’ve worked super hard for everything you have, and you’re willing to keep on putting the work in, sometimes you can stand back and be in awe of what you have achieved. If you find yourself at this phase, allow yourself some time to feel good, but then go right back to hustling. No matter how big your business gets, or how well you do, you need to stay humble. Because getting too big for your boots is bad for business. Not only does it look bad, but it can also mean you get caught off guard.

When you’re doing well, it’s easy to believe that you’re unstoppable, or that you’re better than the best. And it’s this kind of attitude that can kill businesses. Because when you’re least expecting it, you can be beaten. To stop that from happening, you need to always be on the ball and never underestimate anything. When you’re quick to write of threats as being not-so-threatening after all, you could be stabbing yourself in the back. So, instead of feeling invincible, you’ll benefit from always pushing, always watching your back, and always trying. And above all else, never underestimating anything – especially when it comes to these seven areas.

Competitors

First up, there’s always your competitors to be aware of. It’s easy to think that, when you’re doing well, you don’t really need to have your nose in anyone else’s business. But you do. When it comes to your competition. You should always know what they’re up to. Because if you underestimate them, and believe that they’ll never catch up with you, they could be sat working on a strategy to do just that, and you’d never even know. So keep an eye on the competition, and you’ll always do well.

New Market Entrants

Likewise, it’s easy to underestimate any new market entrants too. When you’re starting to see success, you can often feel like no newbie will knock you off the top spot. But that’s a dangerous mindset to have. Just remember what it was like for you when you first went into business. New market entrants are hungry. They want to be successful – and they’re willing to work hard to make it happen. So take them seriously and don’t underestimate anything they do.

Employees

When you have good employees, you often feel as if they’re going to stick with you until the end. Some will. But most won’t. So don’t just assume that those happy employees actually are happy. Because maybe they’re not. And maybe they’re planning on leaving soon and setting up shop on their own – taking their hard work with them. Treat your staff well, but always remember that they’re not the owner, and they could up and leave at any point.

Suppliers

Another key stakeholder to key an eye on is your suppliers. They’re a business, just like you are, and they’re always going to put their business interests first. So don’t assume that they’re going to do you favors forever. Because they might not. Keep them at arm’s length if you can. Because they could do something to mess up your current relationship. And that’s just business!

Economic Conditions

Never underestimate the current economic conditions either. Whether they’re good or bad, you have to learn to be reactive and stay on top of economic growth in your own way. Sometimes, the conditions will work with you, but don’t ride the wave for too long as they can soon turn. So you have to have your wits about you and be ready to react as soon as they do.

Health & Safety

Then there are the things that are ingrained in your company philosophy. So much so, that it’s easy to assume that they’re running smoothly. Like your health and safety. But you have to actually stay on top of things for that to happen. Including everything from ladder safety gates to protective clothing, you have to be sure that everything you’re doing is above board and as it should be. It’s easy to just assume, but don’t underestimate the ways of the world. Keep on top of everything and you should be fine.

Success

And finally, never underestimate your current levels of success – or the possibility of sudden failure. Things don’t always last. You worked really hard to get where you are, and you have to carry on working hard if you want to stay there. Never adopt the “I’ve made it” kind of attitude, as it could be that one thing that knocks you off the top spot.

Top 3 Reasons Why Happy Employees Are Good for Business

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Employees are your business’s biggest assets. Your company can only grow as rapidly as the growth of the employees that support it. In a market as competitive as today, employees also act as a competitive advantage.

Recent studies have shown that keeping employees happy is a great investment. Businesses whose employees are happy produce better results and can be more agile on the market. Aside from the boost in agility, there are other reasons why happy employees are good for business.

Higher Employee Engagement

Happy employees are 12% more productive according to a study by University of Warwick. The spike in productivity is a great thing for your business, especially when you take into account the collective effect that spike produces when the majority of the employees are happy.

It doesn’t stop at productivity either. Happy employees have higher employee engagement in general. This means they are more likely to take initiatives, come up with creative ideas and solutions, and make steps to further contribute to the success of the company.

Higher employee engagement also leads to lower friction within the organization. Engaged employees will speak up about issues they come across in an attempt to maintain a healthy and pleasant working environment. The business will run at a much higher efficiency this way; the 12% boost in productivity we discussed earlier will have an even bigger impact at this stage.

Fewer (Costly) Errors

The biggest cost for a business isn’t the cost of production or operations, but the mistakes employees make along the way. A simple mistake can lead to a much bigger cost too; when a sales officer failed to meet the customer’s deadline, for instance, the loss in sales can be catastrophic to the business’s growth.

This is where keeping employees happy comes into its own. Happy employees have better ability to stay focused. They are result-oriented and goal-driven too. Pair these traits with the higher employee engagement, and you have the perfect recipe for minimizing costly errors in business operations.

You can use online resources such as SalariesHub.com to find out more about what employees expect from a position or a career. Creating a better compensation package and providing employees with clear career paths are among the best ways to boost employee happiness and increase their ability to perform well at work.

Healthier Team

Lastly, there is the added benefit of having a healthier team when your employees are happy. Happy employees live better and longer. They tend to take fewer sick days and are more economical to insure too. These may seem like small advantages to gain, but they are advantages worth pursuing nonetheless.

The attempt to boost employee happiness can go hand in hand with that of creating a healthier team. By introducing a corporate fitness program, for example, you can help employees stay healthy and happy in the long run.

At the end of the day, you don’t need researches and studies to come to the conclusion that happy employees are good for business. Through a better working environment, a clear career path, and a supportive organization, the right investment in employee happiness can produce a great return for the business.