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How a Website Can Drive Your Business Forward

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There are many advantages to having an online presence for your business, even if you don’t plan to sell products online. Today, having a business website is as important as having a telephone number for customers to reach you on, if not more so. Research indicates that 6/10 consumers expect brands to have some form of online content, whether those companies operate on a local or global scale.

If you don’t already have a business site, now’s the time to step into the online world and start growing your brand. Here are five ways a website could drive your business forward and help secure its future.

Your Business Will Show Up In Search Engines

Many business owners swear they get along just fine without a website or social media presence; perhaps you know one yourself. While their claims may be true, imagine how much better those companies could be doing if they took the time to invest in a website. Now that we collect data on what consumers search for (as well as where, when and how they spend their time and money online) we can tailor online content to ensure it shows up in search engine results. Therefore, having a website will improve visibility and drive more sales to your bottom line. For advice on improving your website ranking, read this Forbes article.

You Will Benefit From the ROBO Effect

You may or may not have heard of the ROBO effect, but the concept is pretty simple. ROBO stands for “research online, buy online,” and it stems from the fact that 81% of 18-34 year-olds follow this consumer trend. Think about the times you’ve needed to buy something specific. More often than not, you would have used a search engine and found your way to an online shopping cart. It’s easy, convenient, and the fastest way to assess all your price options. Do you want to miss out on the 42% of global consumers who shop this way? Of course not, which is why you need a website.

SEO Can Boost Your Rankings

With so much competition out there, you will only remain visible online if you use some search engine optimization tactics. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a way of making sure your business shows up in Google’s indexes by creating optimized content, building relevant links and setting yourself up as a market leader in your niche. It is possible to learn the basics of SEO on your own, but few business owners have the time and resources to do this. Most will use a third-party company to stay on top of their SEO, website and other Internet profiles. Companies like Data Design Systems will work with your business to create an eye-catching, smart website design with optimized pages and content to ensure you stay relevant. For more information, visit datadesignsystems.com.

Email Opt-Ins Will Grow Your Client Base

Even if you don’t own a website or social media profile, you probably still use email for your business. Having an opt-in button on your site allows you to collect email addresses from clients, industry contacts and prospective customers so you can keep them updated on your latest deals and promotions. You can even automate the process to cut down on manual tasks. The best way to collect email addresses using your website is to create an incentive for people to sign up – perhaps money off one of your products or a gift or trial of your services? An email list could end up being one of your business’s strongest sales tools, so don’t miss out.

Your Business Can Operate 24/7

Your website is essentially a storefront for your business that is always open; this means customers can research and buy products while you’re sleeping, creating plenty of passive income opportunities. What’s more, customers will always have a way to contact you, no matter the time of day. Studies show that the rise of globalization and millennial culture means that businesses need to operate 24/7 to stay competitive. Recent research indicates that three-quarters of consumers worldwide expect their queries to be dealt with on the same day, while half expect a reply in as little as one hour. As a business, you must respond to these changing demands if you want to survive in your market.

Conclusion

Rather than seeing the need for a website as another pressure on your business, you should seize the opportunity to grow your company’s online presence and tap into the millennial market. Having a well-designed, user-friendly website will give your business credibility, making it easier for consumers to find you, shop with you and spread the word about your offering.

The question is not whether you should create a website for your business, it’s when to make that all-important step toward your company’s future.

Are You Looking for Advice to Improve the Performance of Your Business?

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It does not matter what type of business you have, sometimes it starts to feel a bit stale and as though it needs an uplift of some sort. This can often be achieved by better performances from your employees, who may be feeling a bit lackluster from doing the same job every day. They may need motivation to help them improve their techniques, and you may need help to assist you with improving your management skills.

Align Them to a Common Goal

Aligning your staff towards a common goal is vital if your business is to grow and succeed. This process often starts at management level, as if you involve your managers in the strategy, it will soon be passed on to the rest of the staff. The manager’s role includes the task of supervising the employees in their group to ensure that work is finished on time and on budget. This will happen if team members are working together, which has been proved by using this strategy at Rolls Royce.  They have seen improved collaboration, enhancing its reputation for luxury and quality, and a report by the Harvard Business Review showed that 70% of employees were in favor of working this way.

Communicating your vision for the future of your business can have very positive results.

Deal with the Problems

If a member of staff informs you or their manager about a problem, no matter how minor it might seem, it should be dealt with as soon as possible. Do not shrug your shoulders when someone tells you they have lost the My Favorites Toolbar on their computer, go to Myfavoritestoolbar.net and find out how to correct it. This might seem a trivial matter to you but dealing with their minor issues as well as any major ones will make them feel that you value them as a member of your team.

When a member of staff does not feel they are taken for granted, they will work more efficiently and help towards that common goal.

Keep Them Informed of Progress

Once the goals have been set, you should keep your employees informed of the results. Knowing if they are performing well can help them to aim even higher, and if they surpass the level of business that was being aimed for, they will all feel much happier in their work. Also, in letting them know what has been achieved, you are still involving them and that matters where employees are concerned. Keeping staff regularly informed of the progress of the plans, and when changes happen, helps to maintain engagement and make them more productive.

You should listen to their opinions as well. When they are working with your customers, they may well have ideas that you, sitting in your boss’s office, would never have even thought of. Do not fall for the mistake of not realizing just how clever some of your employees are, and what a help they can be to your business if you just listen to what they have to say.

It could be that your product or service needs improving to help your business grow, but first of all, look at how you can improve the performance of your staff, as that could be all that is needed.

The Best Marketing Strategies That Every Startup Should Consider

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A startup is not like any other company. For established companies, success and profits are an obsession. However, for a startup, to make it big is a dream, and a dream is purer that obsessions. Sadly, in the ruthless world of business, there is no room for sentiments and no scope for startups that cannot be as efficient or ruthless as major corporations. Given this, the one aspect where startups get trumped by big corporations is marketing. Unable to spend as affluently as the big companies, their product/services hardly get any recognition in the vast market. To rise up from this major problem, here are some of the vital marketing strategies that every startup should consider.

Holding on to a strategic position

Instead of starting aimlessly, the startup should first and foremost define the category that its products or services fall under. Whether it’s a service or a product, if it’s a luxury item or a necessity – all of these questions need to be answered first. Then the key product benefits should be discussed and outlined. What is the core value proposition that the product is offering? Who are the prominent competitors who have set the benchmark in the industry? For the first one to two years, the marketing strategy should be as basic and primary as this. It is the time period where the marketing should be focused on finding out who exactly the startup’s ideal customer is and why they would want to conduct business with them. After finding out the exact target audience, sales promotions can be designed around that group of people.

Going for content marketing

Publishing relatable and quality content on a daily basis is a substantial benefit for marketing. What happens with well written articles and posts is that subconsciously the reader registers the brand name, making it easier for the company to shape relationships with potential customers. Fundamentally, content marketing is primarily about relationship building with a large number of people. Through the help of effective blogging, a small startup can speedily mature into a giant voice and convert into an industry opinion leader, consequently reaping the rewards of the incoming business.

Indulging in effective public relations

Using professional media outlets, informal social media communication can also be a great asset for a startup. These efforts help in enhancing the brand’s identity and increase the startup’s visibility in the market. Good press coverage is also one of the main catalysts for startups to attract public attention. Selling a local newspaper section or a small segment on a broadcast report just to share what exactly is compelling about the startup, showing the human side to the business – all of these little steps must not be overseen.

Lastly, marketers should keep an eye on what’s going viral on the internet and try their best to jump on the bandwagon. Even though going viral can almost be like hitting the jackpot, it is not always achievable. What is achievable however is a great marketing strategy by following these tips.

An Important Leadership Lesson

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The need to effectively manage others becomes increasingly important as our businesses start to blossom, yet it’s often difficult to balance your position as leader, teacher and every other hat you have to wear as an entrepreneur.

Indeed, some business owners consider undertaking an online masters of education in order to feel confident and competent enough to train their staff and lead their team by equipping them with the right knowledge and strategy to go out and deliver, yet this often isn’t necessary.

This article offers two important leadership lessons for small business owners, and encourages you to quickly learn new employees motivational style in order to manage them effectively.

1. BE THE BOSS

There is of course a fine line between being a leader and being a dictator.  It’s important to remember that whilst you are the leader of the company your role is more that of a director, in that it is directional rather than dictatorial.

Nobody likes being dictated to, and few people actually enjoy or respond well to being directed unless they have complete confidence in your decisions and leadership skills.  It can therefore be a psychological minefield to get this balancing act right.

The best approach is to remember that you are the captain of the ship, and that captain’s unapologetically give orders to their crew.  Now, in a business context, it’s of course much more important to be civil and respectful, than the captain of a ship, but it’s equally important you take the wheel and lead this project to its final destination.

2.  USE THE TWIN FORCES OF MOTIVATION

You may have heard of the metaphor with regard to the carrot and the stick which describes the polar forces of motivation theory.

In psychology there are two broad groups of people; they are known as “toward” and “away from” people.  This means that some people prioritise moving toward pleasure whilst others prioritise getting away from pain.  Of course, most people have a mixture of both, but there is normally one predominant force that motivates a person to take action.

The person that is motivated toward pleasure tends to be the more committed and advancement focused employee, whereas the person motivated away from pain, tends to be the type of person that will do what it takes to keep their job and not all that much more.

You want to get to know your team and see what motivates each team member; is it the possibility of praise and reward or is it the fear of loss, such as missing out on a staff incentive or even losing their job?

By applying both of these psychological forces, in your leadership style means you will be able to manage most people effectively.

The carrot could, for instance, be a cash incentive, public recognition, or simply some one-to-one verbal praise for doing a good job.  The stick, meanwhile, could be the fear of dismissal or having a penalty imposed such as having to stay late at the office in order to get things finished.

If you think back to school, there were gold stars (to acknowledge good behaviour) and detentions (to acknowledge bad behaviour).  Some people would be motivated toward getting a gold star whilst others would be motivated by staying out of trouble.  The same remains true in modern business leadership.

The Rise Of The Internet Entrepreneur

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With E-Commerce becoming a solid reality in the business world, many are now the chances for the young (and the experienced) entrepreneur to create a solid business… from a simple laptop. Not only purely E-commerce related, but also when it comes to mobile optimisation, trading and networking, let’s try to understand the breed known as “webtrepreneurs” in a more detailed way.

The Dropshipping Method

One of the most prolific ways of doing business when it comes to E-commerce is dropshipping without a doubt. Dropshipping, believe it or not, is way older than you think: IKEA, in fact, started as a dropshipping business and Amazon, too.

The process behind Dropshipping is quite simple: basically, you are selling products that you don’t physically own and that are not stored in your facilities.

In the current Shopify era, the whole concept behind Dropshipping evolved accordingly: the whole idea now revolves around having a store that focuses on selling niche products (phone cases, for example) that are provided by Chinese online suppliers (mainly Aliexpress and DHgate) and are ultra branded with a charge on their original price that currently fluctuates around 200/250%. The whole process is then automated with an app called Oberlo.

Dealing with such suppliers could be risky, that’s why many of these shops have quality professional indemnity insurance.

Digital Marketing Agencies

The business-savvy marketer nowadays knows that one of the best ways to get new clients is via proper marketing campaigns online, whether if they are content related, focused on SEO or PPC. For example, every modern drop shipping business is relying on Facebook (and Instagram) ads to increase their sales. This demand for quality marketing campaigns, of course, is giving power to the experts in the craft, that are of course making a big profit from it.

Marketing a store or a brand could be a hard task, so being able to properly show a solid ROI to clients is, of course, the top priority for the marketing entrepreneur.

The Influencer’s Path

Many are the ones who saw Instagram as a potential business environment all the way back when it started but no one knew about the level this platform could have reached: to this day, having organic, quality traffic on a big Instagram page is something that attracts companies, investors and literally everyone who wants to showcase his/her product. That’s why influencers are the most powerful form of paid social advertising now. By the way, no one will ever reach what today is known as “The Kardashian Effect“: in fact, whatever goes to Kim’s (or anyone from the family) Instagram page (currently fluctuating around 110 million followers) automatically goes viral a couple of (get ready) SECONDS after it has been posted.

About the Author

StrategyDriven ContributorPaul Matthews is a freelance writer and E-Commerce entrepreneur in Manchester. His aim is to inform people about the power of the internet, while he still focuses on Caunce O’Hara. You can often find him mountain biking or at the local library.