The challenge, however, is there are so many potential business opportunities on the landscape these days, that it’s often overwhelming to identify one that involves minimal risk, upfront investment and training.

So we’ve done the research for you. The following are 5 great home-based business ideas that are engaging, affordable and flexible all rolled into one.

Become a Freelance Writer

If you are a skilled writer, then there’s a good chance you could be an excellent freelance writer. Freelance writers can work from anywhere – you could opt to sit in your local coffee shop or travel around the world with laptop in hand.

You must have a grasp on tone and grammar and the ability to edit and research topics you aren’t familiar with in order to find success. Another benefit is that sometimes you are forced to do research about topics and learn things you never would have known if you weren’t writing about it.

Start an Air Freshener Business

This at home business is ideal for men, women and retirees. You can choose your own territory, training is minimal, there isn’t a requirement for lots of storage. The commercial air-freshener business is a growing industry – without odor neutralizing products, the workplace and commercial restrooms would smell unpleasant and negatively impact repeat traffic and company morale. The increase in demand for air fresheners has created a great opportunity for entrepreneurs who seek home-based business opportunities. In order to find great success, it’s vital to know that the secret to good customer service is real people – like you.

Act as a Virtual Assistant

If people think of you as being very organized, then a virtual assistant could be a good fit.

Executives eventually find themselves in a place where they’re unable to manage all of the emails, calls, appointments and other responsibilities they must take care of – they’re busy running their businesses.

Insert a virtual assistant; if you become a virtual assistant, you would use your email, skills, phone and other online tools to handle online calendars, make reservations, set up reminders, schedule appointments, organize events and file documents.

Manage Social Media Accounts

If social media is one thing you have down pat, but never thought it could turn into something you could make a living doing, there’s some good news.

Many businesses are happy to pay people well if they have the ability to manage social media accounts. If you are able to stay on brand, reply to customers intently, use correct grammar and share appropriate content, you could find a lot of success as a social media manager.

Become a Personal Trainer

If you’re into health and wellness, you could think about becoming a personal trainer.

When you’re a personal trainer, you make house calls, let clients come to you if you have the correct equipment and visit a gym. You have to be extremely knowledgeable about the human body, understand safe and proper exercises for body types and have the skill set to buy sildenafil from canada get people motivated and help them stay motivated. You should also have the people skills to get to know your clients and learn more about what they want and what works best for them.

The right home-based businesses allow entrepreneurs to be more in charge of their own lives. Whether you have children at home, prefer to sleep in or like to take long lunches, home-based businesses are beneficial. Or maybe you want to ditch those quarterly reviews and be your own boss and travel when you want. These reasons are all enough for you to explore the low cost home-based businesses out there. Consider your areas of expertise and interests to help you decide which business idea will work best for you.

The post 5 Perfect Low Cost Home-Based Business Opportunities appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Invest in advertising

When it comes to advertising your small business, it’s not something to take lightly. You don’t want to spend a fortune advertising in every direction – it can be a waste of time. Consider the options and which make the most sense for your business like technical seo. It may be a good idea for you to advertise in local newspapers. Placing ads in various newspapers offers a wide visibility – you extend your reach to those who read hard copies and online readers.

You can also network at trade shows. If you sell home décor, a trade show will attract your target customers and is the perfect place to gain maximum visibility, you just need to make sure to use the best Trade Show Booth Design to attract customers. When it comes to “first hires” we always suggest to get them from a Trade Show Booth Staffing where you can find more options.

Now is also the time to advertise on social media. Decide which platforms are the ideal place to show what your business believes in and offers. If you aren’t sure you can take this task on alone, look at pros and cons to outsourcing social media marketing. No matter who does the marketing, make sure it’s done well.

Invest in training

There are numerous ways you can further train your team — even if they come to you with years of experience, every new employee needs proper training. However, when you’re overwhelmed running the business, this very important task can get brushed aside.

Instead, as a small business owner you should write down every element of the training. Record each job’s tasks, how-to’s and notes on company policies. This is very helpful with each new hire, so you can follow the list to complete the essential training without any lost time.

Remember that if you simply can’t make the time to train your employee, you don’t have to do it all yourself. You can also use online sites like the Amazing Selling Machine review by GFKamerica.com. This is a great resource that breaks down how to effectively sell on amazon, teaching employees about everything from how to build the product opportunity list to how to make the perfect product page and launch the product. There are a wealth of excellent training resources online; you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Invest in your employees

You know that employees are your most important assets. They’re the ones who communicate with customers, adhere to your brand values and in turn help to grow your business. Keep in mind that employee turnover is a bigger problem than you may imagine – the cost of replacing each employee is between 6 and 9 month’s salary, based on the role.

This is why you have to invest in your employees. When you offer perks such as flexible working hours, professional development, fitness and health options and the ability to work remotely, you better support your team. When you support your employees, you keep them happier. The higher morale means higher productivity and higher employee retention. How you treat your employees affects the reputation of your business, especially now that sites allow employees to explain what it’s like to work for any business online for the world to see. When you treat your employees well, your brand will be seen in a more positive light.

It’s time to see the importance of investing in all areas of your business; whether it’s something you’re yearning to do or approaching with a large dose of trepidation, do your due diligence to make sure you are taking the necessary steps to make your business thrive.

The post 3 Resources to Make Your Small Business Grow appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Improve the customer experience

Many small businesses use data capture tools to better understand and subsequently meet the demands of their customers. Analyzing customer behavior and paying attention to reviews and feedback allows businesses to modify their presence online and alter products and services to best suit the marketplace. There are many secrets to good customer service, and one of those is using what you learn about customers to cater to their wants and needs and improve the shoppers experience.

Refine the marketing strategy

Contextualized data allows businesses to grasp how consumers engage with and respond to marketing campaigns, then make adjustments accordingly. This will give you what you need to know to ensure you offer consumers what they want. Marketing is evolving and now focuses on personalization. Businesses today need to personalize the customer journey on websites and social platforms like Facebook and YouTube. Segmenting data effectively will allow you to market to the people who are more likely to engage with your content. Keep in mind that fewer more profitable customers is the key to growth.

Make smarter business decisions

Businesses that utilize data gathering also profit from it. A survey by Helical IT found that relying on data to make a decision instead of intuition boosts the chances of success by 79 percent. This means that the implementation of a data collection process allows a business to make decisions based on data. Once you have a system up and running, the quantity and quality of data the business will collect over the years will influence its sustainability and competitive advantage.

Boost sales

Customer behavior data is so important today. This is why your business needs to glean valuable data to better understand your customer. When you can identify your customer’s buying preferences, you will increase conversions and drive revenue.

Optimize pricing

Pricing is often a challenge when introducing products. When you price items too high, you can drive customers away. Pricing them too low can negatively impact your profit margins and even skew the customer perception.

This is why you should use data from your CRP to segment your customers by different price points. It allows you to narrow down the ideal price range based on the group’s behavior, demand and price tolerance. When you combine internal and external data points, you’ll be armed with the insights you need to determine the optimal pricing structure to maximize your sales potential.

Before the digital age, traditional one-way mass marketing communication was a thing. The customer experience and personalization didn’t really matter. However, in today’s customer-centric world, our customers expect more. By using customer data, you can learn more about the customer and use the information to better your marketing strategy and increase sales.

The post 5 Ways Businesses Can Use Customer Data appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

While some of these ideas save more cash than others, it’s important to keep in mind that every little bit of money savings adds up. Maybe you pay for bookkeeping way too much instead of working with a cheap accountant that could do the same job? Take a look at these 5 innovative ways your small business can save cash starting today.

Consider Communal Advertising 

Marketing your small business can be a major expense, and this expense can weigh you down. If your business has minimal exposure, marketing can cost your business thousands of dollars before you see some return on investment. This is why it’s good to get with other local businesses and try to advertise together. Consider sharing distribution channels, suppliers and mailing lists with other businesses that offer complementary products or services.

Avoid Renting Office Space Full-Time

Technology has transformed small businesses, offering new opportunities for owners and a more streamlined way to run businesses. Taking on a lease for office space can be very expensive and take away from your bottom line. Thanks to technology, you can run your business remotely from anywhere in the world if you have a smart phone or other device. Consider having an online business versus a brick and mortar store for as long as possible, just make sure you know how to stand out when selling online.

If you have the space in your home, you can convert it into your home office. When tax time comes, you can save precious dollars when you write off part of your space as a business expense.

Barter

If you’re already familiar with the best money making apps, there’s something else that is very simple that you can do to save your business money: barter. Nearly every small business is in a position just like you – they’re short on money. This is why you’re in the perfect position to barter for products and services. For example, a photographer and a boutique owner can engage with an amazon lifestyle photography session for headbands and other clothing and accessories. Think about who you can work with and reach out to gauge interest. While bartering may not always work, it’s always worth a try.

Hire Contractors and Freelancers

Hiring full time employees can really hurt the bank account today. While it’s ideal to build your team with loyal and motivated employees, you should also turn to independent contractors and freelancers to help you. They can provide high quality work and eliminate the hefty costs of onboarding and training a full-time employee. Freelancers and independent contractors are also experts in the field and will charge you only for the tasks you ask them to complete.

Offer to Speak at Events Within Your Industry

If you’re an expert in your field, then it’s a good idea to offer to impart your knowledge on others. Consider speaking at conferences or events within your industry and sharing what you know. This allows you to prove your credibility to others, offers you brand free exposure and gives you the chance to meet new people.

There are endless ideas you can utilize to try to save your small business money. While some will yield better results than others, most will save you at least a little bit of money. Try these strategies and watch your bottom line improve!

The post 5 Innovative Ways Your Small Business Can Save Money appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

You Can’t Have One Without the Other

Imagine a company without anyone to run it. Picture a counter without anyone to help the customer. Every position has a powerful impact on what happens within a company. It all starts with the marketing department. This is the component that brings your customers in the door interested in what you have to offer. Once the client is at the door your customer service kicks in.

Customer service, which usually falls squarely on the shoulders of your employees, can make or break your business just by how they represent you to your clients. Where do you get those valuable employees?

The human relations officer hires, monitors, and meets the needs of the employees who represent your company. This department recruits the right candidates and then ensures they are happy and that their needs are being met so they remain loyal to your company’s policies and goals.

The finance officer runs the accounting department that handles all of the receivables and payables that keep the flow of money pumping throughout the company, which literally is the life-blood. This department makes sure payroll is available as well as the capital to keep the business running.

The role of the operations manager in an organization holds all of these positions together and keeps them accountable. This position ensures that all of the other departments are running smoothly and effectively.

You Can Do It All

So what if your company isn’t that big or you are strictly an online operation? What if you are the only person running your business and there aren’t any other employees? Well, those roles still need to be filled. Whether it’s you, putting on a different hat for each position, or hiring a full staff, those positions must be met. If it’s just you, then

• Get your name out there and promote your business.
• You are the face and voice of your company.
• Ensure you provide adequate health care and time off for your needs.
• Handle the receipts and pay the bills, as well as your own salary.
• Stand back and watch all of the pieces working together as you operate your business and giving each position its necessary time and energy by appropriately splitting your time.

Ultimately, it’s up to you, whatever the size or nature of your business. As you plan and go forward, assess your needs and what you want to handle yourself or hire someone else to take over for you. As your business grows, who handles these positions can change and adapt to your success, but the need for them never goes away. Plan accordingly, putting each piece into place and build the perfect team to fit your needs.

The post Success Starts With the Right Team appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

As you strive to grow your small business, remember that there is a light at the end of the tunnel if you have the stamina to see it through. Take a look at these 5 ways to effectively grow your business. Nowadays, people are becoming more mobile when they use the internet. Moreover, over 46% of Google searches are location-based. The local community needs to know where they can fulfill their needs. For tourists, it is about them finding your establishment when they arrive. Local Brand Advisors helps you get to the top of search engine results.View LocalBrandAdvisor.com for local brand advisors. There is also a need to build a funnel for business growth, here’s a quick funnel builder secrets review to give you some great ideas for your referral marketing prospects.

Research the competition

This is vital: you need to research the competition so you know what you’re up against. You can use online platforms to conduct your research – this is how you’ll be able to see what other businesses are doing. Once you understand their advertising copy, landing pages, and other stages of the sales funnel, as well as discovering your competitors’ online strategies, you can then identify what they’re doing that works. How to reach to more clients, check millennial vs. gen z.  Emulate what is helping them succeed and you’ll be well on your way to scaling your business.

Prepare yourself

You never know what may happen, so do what you can to prepare yourself for unforeseen bumps in the road. Recessions can result in a slowdown in economic activity. Even events like a hard Brexit in the U.K. can negatively impact businesses in the United States. Brexit hinders growth for businesses that operate in Europe, and U.S. businesses are the most significant investors in Great Britain. While you want to focus on the positive and keep moving forward, a key part of being a successful small business owner is being prepared for what may come your way, and ensuring that your reactions are flexible and you’re able to adapt quickly.

Build an email list

One of the most effective ways you can grow your business is by building an email list of customers and sales prospects. You need to have a lead magnet to encourage people to subscribe to your list. Make it a point to learn how to connect with your audience. When you have the means to contact people who want to hear from you, you’re more likely to generate sales. Sending out well-written emails with calls to action and enticing promotions will ensure your business is always at the forefront of your customers’ minds. Cold calling, on the other hand, can do more harm than good to your business, as it’s often perceived as unwelcome or invasive to potential customers. Keeping and maintaining a list of emails for interested parties ensures that you don’t waste your marketing budget chasing leads away, rather than drawing them in. 

Form strategic partnerships

There is one thing you can do that can make a world of difference to your business: form strategic partnerships with the right businesses. These partnerships will allow your business to reach a variety of customers quickly. It isn’t always easy to identify the right partnerships, but it can be done with some effort. Look out for companies that complement your own. Contact the business and propose opportunities to work together and remember to always highlight the benefits of the partnership.

Identify new opportunities

When you understand your demographic, you can analyze new, potentially business-altering, opportunities. Aim to understand everything, from direct competitors to distribution channels, and even analyze foreign markets. You’ll find dozens of opportunities to pursue with the right analysis.

Growing your business takes significant effort. Make sure to knuckle down and view things in perspective. Then you can pinpoint the best ways to grow your business and take it to the next level efficiently and quickly.

The post 5 Ways to Generate Small Business Growth Starting Today appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

No matter which specific domains service businesses occupy, operational efficiency is the underlying factor that determines their success. Fortunately, technology is coming to the rescue across the industry. Here’s how service businesses are taking advantage of new advances.

Companies Are Learning to Predict Problems

Everyone makes mistakes, and some errors are outright unavoidable. That doesn’t mean, however, that it’s acceptable to sit back and wait for things to go wrong. Instead, smart service business leaders are learning from history so that they don’t have to repeat it.

With software tools that monitor job progress and personnel activities, service providers gain critical new perspectives. Now, they can look at event records to see what happened right before things went wrong and prevent similar reoccurrences in the future.

Imagine that a fulfillment company starts keeping close track of how often its vehicles break down. Armed with its new knowledge, the firm might be able to sidestep such problems down the line simply by adjusting its maintenance schedule. Or it might use past work data to learn when customers need the most help and schedule more technicians on those days. It may be impossible to predict every event, but knowing about the big ones makes it way easier to stay ready and avoid revenue-killing work stoppages.

Job Processing Is Less Disjointed

Job-related admin tasks can be the bane of a service provider’s existence. Whether it involves passing out account information to technicians, gathering appointment completion rate stats or managing order paperwork, these tiny jobs pile up until they threaten to overwhelm businesses and strain their leaders’ sanity.

Digital job processing keeps all of the vital details in one place, so it’s easier for different stakeholders to make their input heard. When managers and fleet drivers can share the same up-to-the-second account information, for instance, it becomes far simpler to cultivate satisfying customer experiences. It’s also easier to associate completed jobs and consumer reviews with specific technicians or in-the-field employees, which furthers accountability.

Dispatch Flows Unbelievably Smoothly

Managing dispatch operations is one of the hardest aspects of service company operation. With many jobs, firms don’t even know that they need to get to work until the clock is already ticking, and consumers hate waiting around.

Software systems that help service businesses master dispatch and stay on top of things are proving invaluable when it comes to raising efficiency. Even though companies still have to contend with the unexpected, they can do so in a more measured, accurate manner that imbues consumers with confidence. Since dispatchers always know where their vehicles are and how technicians are occupied, they can

• Provide better estimates of wait times,
• Schedule work to minimize fuel expenditures, and
• Identify travel inefficiencies that were previously unquantifiable.

Service businesses must be efficient to thrive. No matter how many office staff members they have on-call, they can’t do it all alone. Providers that ultimately succeed leverage software tools to find out why they’re inefficient and make changes for the better.

The post How Technology Is Making Service Businesses Run More Efficiently appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

• According to one study, 99.3% of influencers use Instagram to execute their influencer marketing strategies
• Eighty-four percent of micro-influencers charge less than $250 per post, making it a very budget-friendly strategy to focus on
• According to a Nielsen study, 92% of consumers trust recommendations from their online peers, even if they don’t know the person directly
• The average return on investment (ROI) for marketers who used influencer marketing was $7.65 per dollar spent
• Of the ten most popular YouTube channels, eight of them are hosted by influencers

Snapchat is designed to be fun and engaging for their users, which makes it a perfect platform for communicating with your market through an influencer strategy. Over the past few years, more and more brands—as well as influencers—have turned to Snapchat to get creative with their content.

Here’s how you can get started with influencer marketing for Snapchat.

Get Your Site Ready

Before you launch your influencer marketing strategy, be sure that your website is equipped to handle an influx of site visitors. You may unknowingly be using a shared hosting provider, and should consider switching to a virtual private server.

According to Dreamhost, “if your website’s audience is consistently growing, you’ll want to consider upgrading. You don’t want to run the risk of your website running slowly or, even worse, your server crashing because it can’t handle the traffic. Once you’ve completed all your website housekeeping, it’s time to move on to the next steps.

Choose the Right Influencer

Choosing the right influencer is one of the most important aspects of your influencer marketing campaign. After all, this is the person who will be representing your brand. Without the right influencer, you can consider it a wasted investment.

The key is to thoroughly find the influencers who are most aligned with your brand. By examining each of their social profiles—not just Snapchat—you can better understand their messaging and overall social personality. Fortunately, there are a few tools you can use to identify some key influencers, which takes away from the need to search manually. These tools include BuzzStream, BuzzSumo, Grin.co, NinjaOutreach, and Klear.

While each of these platforms are different and have varying capabilities, you should try each to see what works best for you. However, for the most part, you’re able to search for different influencers by industry, and filter by follower count, reach, and other metrics.

Once you’ve compiled a list of viable candidates, begin researching each of their social profiles. Pay special attention to the different ways they engage with their audiences. Are they just posting photos or commenting back? Are they telling interesting stories on Snapchat, or merely posting photos of themselves? These are all things you should consider.

To help you better understand what it takes to run a successful Snapchat account, take a look at these successful Snapchat influencers.

Let the Influencer Take Over

You may have heard of the “celebrity takeover”—a marketing method used by bigger budget companies to build a buzz around their brands. With influencer marketing, it works the same way. Once you’ve chosen the right influencer, you allow them to be your brand for a day. The neat thing about takeover is that the influencer promotes it on their own; this way, they can get their own audience to come over and tune into your Snapchat profile. Because of this, it’s a great way to grow your Snapchat audience without having to spend a fortune on Snapchat ads.

Furthermore, one of the biggest reasons takeover are so popular is because they’re raw and authentic; the influencer who conducts the takeover helps viewers realize how they themselves can connect with the brand, and they achieve this by giving it a voice.

Guide Your Influencer

Your influencer comes armed with an audience, but you have to put in some legwork, too. By guiding your influencer, you can ensure their messaging stays consistent with your vision. For instance, you might send them to a live event, like a conference in your industry. Or, you might help them better understand your product or service, allowing them to review it effectively.

Be sure that when you guide them, you don’t rule them. This means that you should refrain from giving them a script, and allow them the freedom to express their creativity and originality.

For example, they might encourage your visitors to enter a contest. Contests are a great way for you encourage your viewers to not just view your stories, but to get involved, and influencers are great at doing just that.

The post Tips for Starting a Snapchat Influencer Marketing Campaign appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

As technology continues to morph and expand, it’s good to understand how it positively impacts your business. Take a look at these six ways technology can help you organize and grow your small business.

Expand your reach

 Even in this technology-filled world, it’s smart to utilize a variety of advertising mediums, from mailers to fliers. However, you need to focus on digital advertising – you can use it to advertise your small business for free. Social media platforms are a cost-effective way to engage your followers and not spend a dime. Some businesses may find they’re unable to reach the target audience for free, but there are still inexpensive solutions that cost spend less than the more traditional methods of advertising.

Make yourself easy to find

Your prospective customers view a concise and strong website as one that’s professional – a website also increases the odds you’ll be found on search engines. If you want customers to find your business, take the time to build a website that is helpful, informative and makes it clear that your business offerings are the solution to their problems. Make sure you always treat your customers like individuals and not simply transactions.

Reduce communication costs

If your small business turns to conference lines to communicate or has teleconferencing expenses, it’s simple to cut the associated costs. Skype and other similar services allow you to communicate with people from various locations for free. If your business has a lot of debt, this is an easy way to free up some money to pay it down. You can also consider options like an IVA to help become debt free.

Learn new things

 Whether you want to trade online with a broker or learn something new, the web is the place to go to make it a reality. You can find everything you could imagine when you can explore online. Consider searching for technologies that will help you better serve your customers. Recognize that the internet is a wealth of knowledge and when used correctly it can help you reap tremendous rewards, just look at how the ARIN Auction Services have been helping business for a while now.

Send an email newsletter

 Putting together and publishing an email newsletter is one of the greatest ways you can connect with and build an audience. Learn what your audience wants to know more about and write high quality, useful content to provide your customers value. Showcase yourself as an industry expert and you’ll build loyalty and avoid the hard sell.

Stay connected on the go

If you run a business where your team members or customers may need to reach you consistently, you have to figure out a way to stay connected when you’re away from the office. A dedicated tablet or smartphone is a wise investment, so you can ensure people can get in touch with you no matter where you’re located geographically.

Take care of your business financials, don’t get into any Forex Scams, because Forex fraud is a growing problem. It can be found everywhere from boiler room scam artists, to some guy you met at the coffee shop the other day, even past trusted brokers and executives have been involved in forex scams. The most common victims are the ones who think it will never happen to them.

Your small business budget has the ability to provide you with access to technology that can build your business. Whether you need a little help getting your business name out there or want to reduce your monthly expenses, you will find that in thanks to technology, your solution is only a few clicks away.

The post 6 Ways Technology Can Boost Your Small Business appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

The widespread proliferation of cloud-based services has made them almost ubiquitous in the technology world, with all but the largest of businesses electing to take advantage of off-site infrastructure and software rather than managing them in-house. While cloud computing offers significant advantages over traditional services provided on-site, it’s also easy for companies to find themselves paying for services they don’t actually need or that could be managed internally for less cost.

Security is once again in the forefront of every CEOs mind (though it should have never left!), and the crippling vulnerabilities found at the beginning of 2018 should highlight just how critical strong patch deployment and quick response time is in the world of asset management. Software and hardware vulnerabilities aren’t anything new, but we need a constant reminder of how to deal with these issues when they arise.

Many companies have started putting ITAM at the very forefront of their IT doctrine. This shift in focus demands internal change and restructuring to provide administrators with the tools and personnel they need to be successful. Without the support and backing of senior management, performance driven ITAM becomes an unreachable goal that can increase costs, chew through resources, and cause headaches for all involved.

Taking a look at these three components to success in 2019 will help you be better prepared for next year’s advancement.

Head Stuck in the Cloud

 Let’s be real: cloud services have transformed the way we view traditional technology infrastructure. Taking all the hardware, software, and personnel from a buzzing, dimly lit server room and depositing it a thousand miles away for someone else to deal with has been a revolutionary way to cut costs, increase efficiency, and open new avenues for businesses to expand their operations.

The sublime nature of cloud services is a huge contributing factor in why businesses may find themselves in the unenviable position of having way, way more cloud licenses than they need, and they probably don’t even know it. “We can run all of our software from a datacenter in Las Vegas!” sounds really great from a management standpoint, but isn’t always necessary for day-to-day operations. Not every service and piece of infrastructure needs to be offloaded to someone else. That responsibility can often be handled internally for less cost.

That’s not to knock IaaS or SaaS in any way, but in 2019 it’s good to take a step back and look at the big picture if you’re utilizing a large number of cloud services. Are you really getting value out of your cloud licenses? All of them? What can you do on your own that’s being handled by another company right now? These are common resource questions that simply don’t get asked once a cloud service agreement has been put in place. Reevaluating just how much bang for your buck you’re getting from the cloud will be a big part of looking at your activities next year.

We’re Having a Meltdown!

 With terrifying names like Spectre and Meltdown, two critical hardware based vulnerabilities that could affect operating systems at the kernel level gave IT a swift kick in the rear this year. It’s important to realize these security breaches are just as horrifying as their bond-esque names imply; both Spectre and Meltdown represented one of the single largest security breaches in the history of computing. The patch required to fix these issues was so significant that is reduced CPU performance for every affected system, in some cases by huge amounts. Rapid patch deployment was crucial, as data and secure information access was essentially laid out on the table for anyone to see.

Take the time to analyze how ITAM can help improve security and threat response time. This isn’t the first and it won’t be the last major vulnerability to pop up in the near future. Asset management plays a critical role in ensuring newly found security problems are quickly addressed on a company-wide scale. Whether it’s using CMDB software to keep accurate patch histories across all your devices, or having a step-by-step playbook for immediate response and deployment after a critical vulnerability is found, Spectre and Meltdown have reinforced just how important the marrying of security and asset management needs to be to businesses that care about their data.

Let’s Get (Re)Organized

Over the last decade, many organizations have come to realize the inherent value in having a well-organized technical department. For anyone who hasn’t gone through any major structural changes recently, it may be time to start pushing for more support and freedom. The fluidity needed for IT departments to tackle current issues should be a priority for every business, and giving IT departments the power to manage and direct themselves in a way that’s conducive to quick response and adaptation has enormous potential benefits.

If you haven’t already, getting senior management behind structural and procedural changes to better empower your IT department should be a top priority in 2019. It can be difficult to sell the cost effectiveness of such a move, but the value of your IT department should have already made itself known by now. Getting additional tools to improve efficiency and performance will sell itself ten times over the next time a major update goes through without service interruption.

Always Evaluate!

After going over these topics, it should be apparent that the trend in 2019 will be pushing IT as a priority in every business, and attaining all the tools needed to perform while keeping costs low.

How does your organization view 2019? Will you be making any major changes to the way you operate? Continuing to evaluate how technology works with and for your company will always be the most important thing to look out for each year.

The post Prepping for 2019: Three Things to Consider For Next Year appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Build better websites

Many technology professionals would be shocked to know that nearly half of U.S. small business don’t have a website. Of those with business websites, there is a lot of variety in the sophistication levels of the website and the satisfactions levels of the entrepreneurs they belong to. With the help of responsive design and working capital, you can build a website that looks good and is fully functional on a phone, tablet and traditional desktop computer.

Make better business decisions

Entrepreneurs have to make a lot of tough decisions and solve endless problems. AI can act as your advisor sorting through the piles of data produced by your business, and offer insights. Technology can expedite business decisions, such as whether or not you should adopt a new technology or enter a market. There are countless inexpensive tech hacks to reach new customers and make better business decisions.

Deliver personalized customer experiences

In order to deliver the best experiences, it’s vital to make your store more customer-friendly. Utilize technology to help you – businesses can lean on a form of Artificial Intelligence called machine learning. It takes past experiences and uses them to generate more personalized and relevant experiences for the customer. Personalized experiences are very, very important for small businesses that are known for providing customers with a more personal touch. In-house machine learning necessitates a large amount of data that many small businesses lack, but third party tools make it possible for even the smallest businesses to capitalize on the technology.

Utilize a virtual assistant

AI-powered personal assistants will work for you, doing everything from managing your calendar to scheduling your meetings. Virtual assistants are highly helpful for solopreneurs or business owners who aren’t ready to hire more people but are short on time. More business professionals are opening up to the idea of AI as the benefits become apparent. A recent survey by Forrester shows that more than 50 percent of businesses and technology professionals were thinking about implementing AI.

If you’re pondering adopting technology for your business, remember the ways your business will benefit. Think about the ROI you’d expect to merit and the costs associated with it. Look at how your business will stand out by having the ability to offer your customers niche products. In a world that is growing more automated by the minute, customers will always crave that personal touch only small businesses can offer.

The post 4 Ways Small Businesses Can Adopt Technology appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Advancements in Big Data – or the analysis of customer behaviors online and off – and automation technology are making it easier than ever before for marketers to connect and engage with their audiences. By following the customer journey more closely, and in real-time, marketers can deliver better options that are personalized and relevant. Understand the basics of a customer profile is just the starting point; marketers must understand the nuances of that customer during the buying journey.

To accomplish this, marketing teams need to leverage a variety of technology solutions along with streamlined workflow management. Speed is the name of the game and the strategies below will help you get there.

Chatbots

Offering Insurance Carrier Automation Solutions to customers is important but often costly when it comes to manpower. Using chatbot technology, though, cuts costs while helping customers find quick answers.

Chatbot technology analyzes patterns and word choices of consumers to help find immediate solutions. Chatbots can provide links, give answers to frequently asked questions and even file support tickets if more action is needed. Instead of consumers searching for an email address, then waiting a day or two for a response, chatbots can give immediate answers to common questions.

Consumers like transparency, so when chatbots are implemented, it’s best to let people know that they are interacting with an automated system right off the bat. Chatbot software like SecondEgo communicates with website visitors in real-time. The software uses artificial intelligence to get smarter over time based on data you provide and how people interact with it.

Real-Time Decision Making

Marketers are always looking for ways to speed up the data analysis time so decisions can be made quickly. Data analysis is only part of the picture. Streamlining communication and automating workflows free up team members to focus on optimizing campaigns. The faster marketing teams can make adjustments to campaigns the more revenue they can generate with lower expenses.

Project management solutions like Wrike allow marketing teams to create systematic workflows that speed up communications between team members on specific tasks and create a shared knowledge base for quickly accessing information. Wrike even uses artificial intelligence to automate repeatable tasks that intelligently suggest next steps and notify managers if there’s a possible project delay.

Suggested Items

Having brands suggest items you may like is nothing new – consider the “you may also like” product suggestions that Amazon has been offering post-sale for over a decade. What’s changing is the ability to suggest items across several sites and channels through secure computer software platforms. The right tracking and AI platform can follow customers from one online location to another, and remind them of what they liked on your brand’s site or social media platform. This type of tracking and marketing can also tell you what people are doing after they leave your site, like heading to competitor sites or looking up reviews on your brand.

When marketers better understand consumer behavior, they can better deliver personalized messaging that results in higher return. Big Data and AI benefit both brands and customers by providing custom information.

The post How Big Data and Automation are Giving Marketers Real-Time Solutions appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

However, marketers are having difficulty integrating their social media and email marketing campaigns. Polls have found that 95 percent of marketers recognize the importance of multi-channel marketing, but 51 percent admit they lack the tools and expertise to set up these campaigns.

If you need direction on combining social media and email marketing, you should follow these tips.

Use influencer marketing to earn trust

Email subscriber rates have collapsed in recent years. The biggest reason is that unscrupulous marketers have abused email to spam potential customers. They are very cautious about subscribing to email lists of brands that they do not trust.

Many black hat marketers use spam tactics to try building their email lists with social media. This has hurt the credibility of legitimate marketers trying to earn email subscribers. You need to earn their trust before driving them to your opt-in page.

One of the best ways to gain the trust of potential subscribers is by using social media influencers. Find social media users in your niche that people trust. People will be far more likely to join your email list if you have the endorsement of one of these experts.

Intertwine all channels

The primary focus of many marketers is to use their social media traffic to promote their email lists. Don’t limit yourself this way. Social media doesn’t lose its value as soon as your followers subscribe to your mailing list.

You should also try promoting your social media platforms with your email campaigns. Fruit of the Loom incorporates their major social media profiles into most of their emails, which has helped them expand their reach on social media.

Test both similar and custom opt in pages with your social media traffic

Facebook and other social media platforms offer a wide range of targeting options to reach new audiences. Many marketers have trouble figuring out how do you build their campaign funnels around different audiences.

Should you target eight different types of customers and reach them with the same ads and landing pages? Or should you build custom funnels for each of them? Both approaches have their merits, so you may need to improvise for each campaign.

In some verticals, different demographics respond very differently to certain marketing messages. Marketers in other industries find that there is a little distinction with the demographics that actually convert. Testing different ads and landing pages to optimize your results.

For example, you can create multiple landing pages for each demographic group you are advertising to and A/B test them to find what works best. Landing page software, like Wishpond, makes creating and testing landing pages simple while also integrating with third party email platforms.

Once a social media visitor is converted into a subscriber, use email marketing platforms like Campaign Monitor to create personalized email content based on the landing page message that got them to convert. If the landing page offered an ebook about a specific topic then your email copy should offer additional value on the same topic.

Use multimedia content and pinned posts to reach potential subscribers on Twitter

For many marketers, the term “social media marketing” is synonymous with “Facebook marketing.” Too many marketers overlook the potential of other social media platforms, such as Twitter.

Twitter can be an excellent site to build your email list. However, you need to work hard to make sure that your tweets stand out from all of the noise.

Kajabi has a lot of experience promoting campaigns on Twitter. They have found that using multimedia content and pinned tweet is a great way to build an email list.

Use social data to estimate demand for various lead magnets

Using a lead magnet is one of the most effective ways to build your email list. However, it is easy to invest a lot of time and resources building a lead magnet that appeals to a very small group of people. You must measure interest before investing in it.

You can use social media to identify lead magnet angles that appeal to a large base of potential subscribers. Try tweaking the targeting options with Facebook ads to see the size of different audiences. You probably don’t want to create a product that will resonate with 5000 people on the network.

Twitter doesn’t have the same audience estimates that Facebook does, but there are ways to test engagement for different ideas. Try running sponsored tweets for blog post that will be similar to your lead magnet page. You can use the number of retreats, likes and clicks to gauge interest in a particular topic.

The post Integrate Email and Social Media Marketing to 10X Results appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Host employee training

You want to train your employees – that’s how they learn what is expected of them. An employee training on cyber security is a must and will give you the chance to explain the importance of protecting computer systems from theft and damage. Informed employees are the best employees – this is why more and more companies are cultivating work culture through motivation and leadership.

Post simple online safety tips in view

Take some time to post actionable online safety tips in the break room, on the doors to the restrooms and in the company newsletter. These tips will act as reminders to make smart choices to maintain cyber security. One of the most important steps in setting up a business is taking steps to make sure your business not only gets off the ground, but that it has a solid foundation and well-trained employees to keep it alive and thriving.

Create complex passwords

You’ve probably heard this tip before, but you need to create strong passwords for your critical accounts – unique passwords are the best way to ensure your information stays safe to avoid widespread corporate hacks. If you reuse your passwords for multiple accounts, a hacker can utilize the leaked data from one attack to login to the other accounts. If you can’t keep track of your passwords, use a password manager to help you store the passwords for the various accounts.

Invest in VPN software

Once your logins are safer, it’s time to make sure that your connections are secure. Never underestimate the importance of secure Virtual Private Network (VPN). This software provides online safety so you can login from any location with complete anonymity. Choose a company with great security, high upload and download speeds, and 24-hour customer service. Check out the various software available with the help of the Internet and read about the company to learn more about what they offer. An expressvpn review can inform you of what a good VPN software company will do for you.

Use a firewall

Protect yourself with a secure network, but go ahead and use a firewall too. A firewall is an electronic barrier that blocks unauthorized access to your devices and computers. It’s sometimes included with comprehensive security software. The use of a firewall ensures that all devices connected to your network are secured – even security cameras and smart thermostats. It’s important to secure there devices; many of them are not equipped with any security measures, so hackers have a point of entry to your entire network if you fail to use a firewall.

A culture of privacy in the workplace is ideal – your employees need to know and understand what privacy means to your organization. Give your employees the tools they need to make sure privacy is both achieved and maintained and you will empower them to do their part to keep your business safe.

The post 5 Ways to Encourage Cyber Security in the Workplace appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

If you’re like most, you probably said something along the lines of building an effective and well-maintained email list. And it’s true – an email list can easily become your best friend when it comes to conversions.

It’s an avenue that allows frequent and direct communication to keep you top of mind and it can be one of the best ways to direct traffic to new content. In fact, email automation platform Campaign Monitor conducted an annual report for 2016 that shows for every dollar spent on email marketing, you’ll typically earn back $44. That’s some impressive ROI!

But that kind of return is only possible if you’re using your email list wisely. The five tactics outlined below will help you not only grow your email list, but also turn it into a customer converting machine.

1. Strategically Located Opt-Ins

An email list without opt-in forms is like a flower without roots – it won’t last long and it makes you wonder how it came to be in the first place. But it’s where you place these opt-ins that really drives conversions.

In classic newspaper form, above the fold placement on your page is essential. It’s all about being able to spot the opt-in quickly and easily. Draw the eye with some colors and make it especially visually appealing to bring in more subscribers and grow your list a breakneck pace.

2. Take Advantage of Lightbox Popups

The sight of an opt-in may be enough to scare off some prospective leads. That’s why you should also incorporate a different tactic – lightboxes. Think of these as mobile opt-in forms, ones that are activated once a prospect reads a certain post or scrolls through your page enough.

Technically considered popups (which if you’re completely opposed to then checkout tip #5), these nifty features have a clear call to action, catch the eye, and trigger strategically, among their many other benefits.

3. Split Test Like Crazy

This should be a major priority already but just in case it isn’t, split testing is absolutely essential in the marketing game. Color psychology, word connotation, length, and structure all come into play when someone decides whether or not to engage with content.

Thankfully, most email platforms have this capability built right in. Beyond that, there are a host of other software options out there to help you along the way. Happy testing!

4. Encourage Forwarding

Depending on the platform you use, asking your users to forward your emails along to others can be a great way to grow your list without having to put in nearly any time at all.

You’ve heard of the power of asking followers to retweet on Twitter (which can boost these numbers by 23x)? Well the same principle applies to email.

But be sure to check the terms and conditions of your platform first as some may outlaw this technique specifically.

And as with almost any other marketing tactic, be sure to keep the pushiness down to a reasonable level.

5. Forget About Popups

Popups may be the go-to for a lot of marketers these days but for others, they’re the bane of their existence. And while the efficacy of such tactics can certainly be backed up by some impressive numbers, some people are moving away from popups entirely.

Luckily, though, there are a number of other ways you can still drive growth for your email lists without the help of these intrusive ads.

The Best Ways to Grow Your Email Lists

Emails are by far one of the most effective methods for making a connection, staying top of mind, and ushering prospects through your expertly crafted sales funnel. In fact, many marketers turn to email campaigns as their primary source of new customers.

And when you use the tactics above, you can be sure that your list will grow faster than ever!

The post 5 Ways to Grow an Email List that Actually Converts appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Using an email marketing platform will greatly improve your results, as well. However, more and more organizations are adding Salesforce to their email marketing assets to win far more conversions than with just a single platform.

Using Salesforce to Improve Your Email Marketing Platform’s Results

Email marketing platforms, such as GetResponse, will still be in charge of automating the next email message in a chain, but you can use Forms integrated  to send much more customized emails based on where they are in the sales funnel, information you have about them and actions they’ve taken such as purchase history.

The combination of these platforms will also give your marketing and sales team a far more comprehensive view of how your leads behave. This, too, will make it easier to improve everything from your actual emails to the offers you use to nurture these leads. If you have no experience in marketing then you can contact Conversant Media for professional assistance.

2 Ways to Use Field Change Triggers During Your Email Campaigns

Fortunately, this is actually very easy to do when you use Salesforce. Any time a change is made to a value field on the lead or contact form, you can use automation to begin an email nurturing process that targets recipients based on these changes.

Here are two examples to show you how easy this can be.

1. Bringing Cold Leads Back to Life

Often, a lead will give you every indication that they are on their way to converting and then – all of a sudden – fall off the face of the earth.

Reviving these cold leads is difficult when all you have is your traditional email marketing platform, but when you combine it with Salesforce, you can easily reroute these recipients right back to a “Nurture” status. Then, use the Field Changed trigger to begin nurturing them anew.

Just be sure you give these leads some breathing room before sending them the first email in this new sequence. For example, if they went cold on you right after a trial service offer, give them five days before sending out the email.

Also, that new message should be educational in nature. Even after waiting five days, it is too soon to try again for the conversion if a lead has been unresponsive.

What happens if the lead still is not opening the email?

Do not cut your losses quite yet. Give them about 10 days and then send an email that will reconfirm your mindshare and position as a thought leader. Again, it should be educational, so something about industry trends would be the perfect choice.

You may still not get the conversion, but by reestablishing yourself with the recipient, you will be top-of-mind when they do decide to purchase.

Now, for those leads who do click, send them a nurturing email for a webinar or some other offer that requires a substantial investment of their time. A deeper commitment will bring them closer to converting.

 2. Load an Upsell Campaign for Qualified Customers

Upsells are vital to increasing profitability over time. With Salesforce, you can establish a threshold for when a subscriber becomes a “Power User.” When that happens, an email goes out to your marketing team to let them know about this opportunity.

An upsell email is then sent to this recipient with all the relevant details about this new offer. An account manager is also notified to follow up with this user in the near future over the phone if they do not place an upgraded order.

Getting the Most Out of Your Email Campaigns Is Easy with Salesforce

These are just two examples of how you can use Salesforce as a force multiplier to improve your email marketing campaign. While a high-quality email automation platform is still as important as ever, Salesforce can increase your ROI further by helping you better target your recipients with less work.

The post How Email Marketing Platforms Combine with Salesforce to Boost Sales appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Contractors

A contractor is someone you hire for a specific length of time rather than on a permanent basis or for an unspecified period of time. While contractors are sometimes more expensive than workers in the short term, they come with the advantage of not requiring you to pay them if the work they do slows down or becomes unnecessary. Bringing ir35 contracting for important work projects lets you scale up expertise quickly and without the necessity of a long-term commitment to the employee that can become onerous in later days.

Rentals

Similar to hiring contractors, renting equipment that you will only need temporarily can cut long-term costs by keeping your physical space usage down and keeping capital from getting tied up in heavy machinery. Renting equipment for a project ensures that you have the tools you need for as long as you need them. Of course, in the modern cloud computing environment, increasing numbers of businesses are also outsourcing functions like IT, storage, and other technology issues. Doing so keeps your in-house IT trim and fit and helps businesses that are not primarily IT-driven avoid carrying too many expensive technologies and staffers.

Set Objectives

Growing businesses can too easily lose sight of where they need to be going. Setting a long-term goal is a great way to focus the company on a singular vision, but big-picture goals are often too lofty to guide day-to-day decisions. Instead, try setting up a group of medium-range goals to inform immediate progress. Try to focus on growing a specific product or enhancing one area of the business. If you want to get ambitious, you can set reasonable medium-range goals for each of your departments.

Watch the Customers

Every business in the world has one thing in common, and that is its ultimate dependence on the goodwill of its customers. Businesses deliver products or services to their customers, and these customers either like or dislike what they get. And those customers are often not shy about letting you know where they stand. Sending out customer satisfaction surveys is a reasonable way to gather information, but sending too many or soliciting them too intrusively can make you look pushy. Asking big customers if they have the time for a more personal talk about their experiences is a decent tactic. Moreover, make sure you have a clear route to receive and resolve any complaints.

Growth need not to be a scary thing. A well-prepared company will embrace growth and come out stronger on the other end. Just be sure you have a plan, and things should go seamlessly.

The post 4 Hacks to Manage Growth Like a Pro appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

When done right, it’s an incredibly powerful tool for moving your business forward.

When done wrong, however, it can drive potential customers away for good.

So how do you make sure your email list is a powerful marketing tool for your business?

It’s all about keeping your email subscribers engaged. And by following the strategies outlined below, you can ensure that your list stays engaged for the long haul.

Let’s dive in.

1. Focus on Personalization

When you’re sending a subscriber an email, it’s important to understand that you’re competing with several other businesses for their attention.

A recent study showed that a typical subscriber receives up to 11 commercial emails every day. So without personalization, your chances of standing out are slim to none.

Most email marketers realize this. In fact, 38% of marketers say that improving email personalization was their #1 goal.

But how exactly do you do it? Here’s a few tips that will help:

1. Segment Your Email Lists. By segmenting your list, you ensure that your emails are as targeted and personalized as possible.
2. Personalize Your Subject Lines. If a subscriber isn’t opening your email, it’s impossible to engage them. By focusing on personalization, you can ensure you’re standing out amongst the dozens of other emails they’re getting every day.
3. Customize the Sender Name. Changing the email sender name to a real person is more effective than emails sent from a company name. You may also want to test combining a name with the company name so the recipient knows who it’s coming from.

Personalization is the future of email marketing. More and more data about consumers is collected every day and marketers are using this data to deliver highly personalized content via email. Email automation platforms, like Campaign Monitor, are leading the charge in this direction. Recently, Campaign Monitor acquired customer data platform, Tagga, with the intention to provide customers with the ability to create individual profiles of their customer’s data.

For example, a travel brand could see customers who have purchased travel packages from them in the past and have searched for a trip to Hawaii within the last 30 days but did not purchase. They could then send them a discount for their next trip to Hawaii if they purchase in the next 10 days.

While focusing on personalization can dramatically help with engagement rates, it isn’t the only strategy at your disposal.

2. Use Call-to-Actions

Even if your subscribers do open your email and read it, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re engaged.

Real engagement is about getting them excited about your brand and coercing them to interact with your website. That’s why a call-to-action is so important.

When creating a CTA for your emails, there are a few things you’ll want to focus on. They include:

1. Placement. Test different options to determine the optimal placement for your CTA (above the fold, middle of email, end of email).
2. Design. Creating a button with a unique color can help significantly increase conversion rates.
3. Copy. Having a button that says “Contact Us” isn’t going to cut it. Be relatable and create a short, action-inducing CTA that’s relevant to the recipient.

If engagement is your goal, identifying a high-converting CTA is crucial.

3. Ask Questions

If you want to be successful with your email marketing campaigns, the content of your emails needs to be audience-centric.

That means it needs to be focused on the audience and what they want (not what your company wants).

So what’s the best way to find out what your list wants? Ask them.

Whether it’s how often they’d like to receive emails, when they’d like to receive them, or what type of content they want when they receive them, asking your subscribers directly is the best way to ensure you’re giving them what they want.

Another great way to learn what your subscribers like and don’t like it to send surveys in your emails. Survey platforms like GetFeedback allow you to embed surveys directly into your email to learn all about each subscriber. This data can then be used to further personalize future communications across all channels.

Go Forth and Engage

While there are many other strategies that you can use to engage your email list, the tactics outlined above offer a great head start.

Go forth and engage your list. Your marketing success depends on it.

The post Don’t Get Trashed – Engage Your Email List! appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Increase website security

Many small business owners don’t know that a website, no matter how secure it seems, isn’t as secure as you think. The reason why is that when the site is placed on an unsecure server with various websites, there is a chance of one being hacked. It’s frustrating to know that no matter how secure your site is, it’s not fully protected and poor security can destroy your business. A minecraft server hosting will take preventative measures to reduce risks of privacy violations with the help of firewalls and other electric barriers between a site and those trying to access it with malicious intent. If your site is compromised due to a hosting issue with a well-known company and you chose a low tier plan, the chance of a speedy solution is slim. Business owners sometimes fail to realize the importance of knowing the types of web hosting available and choosing the most reputable providers. Both decisions have a direct influence on the success of your business. We are an IT support services company in Houston that constantly strives to provide dynamic, innovative, and practical consultative design and IT services that will save you a lot of time, reduce costs, and improve the key deliverables for all information technology teams. 

Receive better customer service

When your small business site goes down, you’ll get to know the customer service team of your hosting platform. The difference between good and bad hosts is the speed at which the issue is resolved. A good host offers knowledgeable representatives who will assist you with your problems and answer your questions, whether by phone or chat. Clients with a more profitable account will likely take priority and earn immediate attention. If you went cheap on hosting, you’ll probably be faced with longer wait times, less than stellar assistance, and a fix to your issue that won’t last long. Many small business owners wouldn’t associate customer service with a hosting platform, but it is something you need to think about since it actively affects the experience.

Offer your customers reliability

Your business website often makes the first impression – you want to make sure your customers see a website that runs well and best represents your brand. Visitors may not notice that your website is good when they’re browsing around, but they will notice  if your site is consistently down or isn’t user-friendly. There is always a possibility a website will crash, it’s far less likely if you have a good host. Good hosts are consistently backing up data and cloning sites to ensure they can always provide a fast solution to get your website back and running online so you can sell more products. Less expensive hosting often leads to a slow website – a frustration for many users. There is never a guarantee your website will consistently run without a glitch, but better hosts provides better care to their clients and more efficient web speeds with enhanced security. Reliable hosts minimize many risks involved with your site, which means you’ll have less of a headache if the site experiences any problems.

Small business owners don’t always realize how much hosting matters. There are various options available to everyone who launches a website so make sure you educate yourself before you select your host. A reliable host is the key to overall functionality of a website leading to happier customers and more sales.

The post 3 Reasons Hosting Matters appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Ignore the statistics.

People will always share the scary statistics – only one in five businesses survive past their first year of operation, and half no longer exist after five years. Do not listen to those people. They throw around those statistics to give you an easy out if you want to throw in the towel. Many people start businesses and don’t commit, or they fail to learn how to manage their money. Don’t worry about the odds that aren’t in your favor. Focus on the odds that are.

Start a business that focuses on something you care about.

Don’t start a business that you want to do temporarily. Think about what you’ll still enjoying doing in five or ten years. Why? Because hopefully you are successful, and if so, you’ll be running this same business in five or ten years.

You won’t know everything.

Truth be told, you won’t know a lot when you start. Go ahead and start anyway. You’ll learn as you go along, figuring things out based on real life experiences or with the help of mentors. Don’t let your fears stand in the way of starting that business you’ve always dreamed of. You’ll learn which tools start-ups need to succeed and how to best manage others. Give yourself time and don’t be afraid to ask other successful business owners for help.

Don’t partner with just anyone.

Select your partner with care. Partner with a person because he or she makes you stronger. The wrong partner will make the business you’ve dreamed of not be the business you’ve dreamed up. They may cause more problems that they’re worth and you could end up not enjoying your work. 

Learn all about financing options before you leap.

Starting a business means you need to secure small business financing options and there’s a good chance you aren’t sure where to begin. From SBA loans to merchant cash advance to business lines of credit, the type of financing you utilize to pursue your business can have a profound impact on the future of your business. Take your time and evaluate your options so you can learn about financing for small businesses so you can make an informed decision.

Realize there’s a difference between dedication and obsession.

Go ahead and go on past that line of dedication. Don’t let anyone tell you that you are too obsessed or overly passionate about anything, especially your business idea. It’s okay and a good thing if you feel so strongly about something. That obsession will help you find success and not throw in the towel when the going gets tough.

Read books as often as possible.

Make it a point to sit down and read. If you don’t have time, listen to audio books in the car or when you’re completing other tasks. Read more than just business books. Read self-help books, motivational books, fiction books, and biographies – anything and everything you can get your hands on.

Entrepreneurship can be a little scary. The tips above can help you navigate your way through the uncharted territory of business ownership with some confidence.

The post Seven Things You Should Know About Starting a Small Business appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

But we live in modern times now, and the spreadsheet, while it still has its place, is slowly becoming passé for many functions.

If you’re still relying on spreadsheets to organize data, manage finances, and keep on top of customer contacts, try these better solutions instead.

1. Invest in Accounting Software

Business schools still teach accounting using spreadsheets, and while understanding formulas may be necessary for MBA students, it’s not required for you as a busy entrepreneur. Spreadsheets become unwieldy after a certain point, and they can’t do even half of what good accounting software can.

For example, platforms like QuickBooks let you invoice clients and receive payments, sync your bank account info with your accounting system, and generate reports without spending hours in a spreadsheet.

2. Manage Customer Data

Staying on top of who your customers are, what they’re buying, and your communications with them requires more than a spreadsheet. In days gone by, you’d simply have contact details in a spreadsheet, but today, customer relationship management platforms like Insightly let you do so much more than that.

Need to find an email to a client? It’s right there in your contact file. Want to assign a follow-up call to your sales rep? Some CRM platforms have project management features baked in. Thanks to today’s CRM technology, we’ve moved away from passive customer contact to more active and integrative software, and that’s good news for all.

3. Create a Better Content Calendar

As blogging and social media have taken a more important role in marketing campaigns, we’ve seen a move toward using content calendars to organize efforts across different media. Spreadsheets have come in handy, though they require a lot of legwork to set up and manage.

A better way to get visibility into the calendar view of your content and social media is content calendar software. Brands like CoSchedule have developed sophisticated platforms that integrate with tools like WordPress and social media, and that give you the big picture view of the types of content you have scheduled.

4. Manage Projects Smarter

If you work with a team and use a spreadsheet to stay on top of assignments, you know that doing so usually requires more energy than it’s worth. You’ve got multiple people accessing the spreadsheet, and sometimes people can delete the wrong entries or not see notes they need to complete a project.

Project management platforms like Asana let you assign tasks to team member, communicate on projects, share files, and set deadlines. Nothing slips through the cracks!

We must give props to spreadsheets. After all, they lay the foundation for the technology that followed. But when there is a better solution, why not use it? Today’s software industry is chock full of innovative solutions that can make your life and your work much, much easier.

The post 4 Innovative Ways to Organize Data (NOT Using Spreadsheets!) appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Keep up with your customers.

More and more small businesses are utilizing customer relationship management systems to play out their interactions with customers. CRM allows you to keep your customers’ contact information in one place, as well as information on the products they’ve purchased, any feedback they’ve offered, and materials you’ve discussed with them.

When you keep track of this, it makes delivering exceptional customer service easier. It also makes offering targeted marketing materials based on your customer’s preferences and habits feasible. There are many traits of successful business owners, and one key trait is being customer centric.

Boost your “find-ability.”

If customers are looking to book a private jet or find a great place to eat on an upcoming vacation, technology will help them find your business.  Promote your business on local online directories to improve the chances of it being found online. Learn how to utilize your website to grow your business– build it with your customers in mind. You can utilize social media to consistently promote your business. Pay-per-click advertising is a cost-effective avenue for generating new leads. Essentially, technology allows you to make your business easier to find.

Manage your finances.

Keeping an eye on your cash flow and income is a vital part of managing a successful small business.  This process can easily turn into a major time suck if you fail to let he right technology help you. Track your experiences and account balances so you can get a handle on your money. This will allow you to be better equipped to make smart financial decisions and free up your time to focus on bigger issues like growing your business.

Cut costs.

There are a lot of actions you can take to ensure maximum profits. If your business pays to use conferences lines or has teleconferencing expenses to pay for, technology can help you cut those costs through using services like Skype and FreeConferenceCall.com.  If your business has team members like service personnel or sales staff who routinely work outside of the office, you can benefit by equipping staff with Web access phones to save time and money.

Printing is expensive and a waste of a valuable natural resource, too. Cut down on printing costs through using a duplex printer that prints on both sides of the page.  This cuts your paper usage in half, saving you from buying as much paper.

Technology is constantly evolving, but one thing that remains constant is the way it supports business growth. Learn to embrace and implement technology and your business can stay more organized, extend its reach and boost its bottom line tenfold.

How has your business experienced great success in thanks to technology?

The post 4 Ways Technology Can Improve Your Business appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Are you setting them up for success? With these four tips and tools, you can improve workflows and make your team more productive.

1. Take the Project Management Out of Email

Project management is a huge time suck. You have to break down large jobs into small tasks and then dole them out to the respective team members. That’s not the hard part. What’s more difficult is tracking deadlines, who’s finished what, and the progress completed.

There are several free tools to manage projects for IT teams in small businesses.

One great platform is Trello. Trello is a project management app accessible on both the computer and on mobile devices. No matter where your team members are, they can access updates about specific projects, see deadlines, find the tasks assigned specifically to them, and get moving. Under each project you can use lists to track each team member’s progression, and assign individual tasks to the person responsible.

Asana is another project management tool ideal for team members. This tool has its own mobile app so team members can log in anywhere, anytime. There is a small learning curve, which shouldn’t be a hindrance for your IT team. Once you get your projects up and running, it’s easy to use.

2. Collaborate Virtually

These days, there’s no reason IT teams need to come together in a conference room to hash out projects that need completing. Save your team hours on drive times by collaborating virtually.

GoToMeeting is a great collaboration tool for bringing geographically diverse teams together online. Send each team member the login link and when you expect them to be on screen, and away you go. You can share your screen, connect on video for a face-to-face feel, or even mute teams if they need to keep working while listening to your message.

Skype is another great tool for connecting virtually. This offers the same features (albeit a little less robust) as GoToMeeting, without the price tag.

3. Share the Big Picture

IT teams tend to focus on problem solving. It’s rare they’re in the trenches with the overall strategy of the business, and that could be a lost opportunity. By looping them in via your customer relationship management (CRM) tool, you can show the importance of their work in keeping the customers happy and dollars flowing into the business.

Insightly is commonly used by small businesses to manage customer concerns with IT departments. Customer relationships teams connect directly with the people in the IT department who can resolve issues with checking out online, problems with the website, or other IT related difficulties. The IT department can see the conversation and have full insight into what the customer needs fixed. This saves hours eliminating the middleman and getting customers’ needs resolved quickly.

4. Allow Virtual Work

Today’s workforce should be less centered on when and where the person is working but whether the employee is getting the job done. This is especially true in the world of IT.

Most IT jobs can be done virtually, which means you can offer your team a tremendous perk by allowing them to work anywhere. Still, as a business, you want to track what’s happening and how many hours your team is spending on IT tasks.

Toggl is a free tool that can help you see the breakdown in hours for your IT team. Using this tool can help you get deeper insight into your IT member’s day than if he was in your office working. It tracks time spent on specific tasks so you can see exactly what’s draining his hours and assess where he could be better utilized in the company.

Time Savings Starts With Tools

Technology today continues to advance in a way that allows you to spend less time on administrative tasks and more time getting work done. By using these tools in your business, you set your team up to be more productive and more effective without working overtime.

The post 4 Time-Saving Tricks to Manage IT Teams appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Define your goals

To succeed in anything you do, you need to set goals. Your content marketing campaign is no exception; it should be aligned with your small business goals.  Before you start recreating content, you need to define what it is you hope to achieve through content marketing.  Goals often include raising brand awareness, increasing brand loyalty, educating and engaging your customers, and building connections. As you highlight your goals, it’s also vital to make sure you created a winning content marketing strategy.

Define metrics

Once your goals are in place, it’s time to figure out how you plan to track and measure the performance of your campaign. Each goal will have a different way to measure its success, but common performance indicators include the time users spend on your site, the pages per visit, the bounce rate, conversions, and social shares.

Create content personas

As you try to develop a content marketing campaign, you must take the time to figure out who your audience is. It’s essential to understand what your readers want and what type of content they will consume.

When you have solid content personas, you can better model your users buying behavior and target content at the various stages of the sales funnel.  Without personas, you will be mostly guessing what content your audience hopes for – so more than likely you will share content about what you know instead of what your audience is actively seeking.

Generate content ideas

Many marketers are like a deer caught in the headlights when it comes to generating new topic ideas for their content.  There is a high demand for one-of-a-kind, valuable content that will stand apart from the many posts that are like ten others already out there.  Some ideas to help you come up with posts include focusing on your passions and writing about areas you know.  Build off others content – take what they write and expand on it.  You can also ask your customers and social media followers and fans what they want to read more about.  Let their suggestions fuel ideas for new, innovate posts and capitalize on one of the many ways to grow customer trust and loyalty – through powerful content.

Develop a content calendar

Track your content creation with the help of an editorial calendar.  Calendars will help ensure the content is posted at the right time and offer insight into content personas, keywords and topics.

In smaller organizations, a content calendar isn’t too tough to oversee. If you have a business that has more than one department making contributions to the campaign, a content calendar becomes essential to manage them all.

Don’t let content marketing paralyze you – it doesn’t have to be as hard as it sounds and the more you do it, the easier it gets. Implement key strategies to help you develop a content marketing campaign that allows you to reach your target audience, build a strong online presence, and stimulate interest in your products and services.

The post 5 Ways To Get Started With Content Marketing appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

eBooks.

These are great for B2B companies or businesses that work in a technical space where people love to read more and gain knowledge about their industry. Remember that it’s crucial that you write about things other than your products and services. People do not like to be sold, but instead, prefer to be informed. Write from a neutral perspective and give insight about current events or other relevant, engaging content. Share your eBook on social media and your network can share it for you.

When you build your eBook, ensure your landing page is set up where visitors are required to share their name, phone number, and an email address for the chance to download the eBook.

Newsletter.

If you don’t have a newsletter yet, you are missing out on one of the easiest ways to generate more leads. Put a newsletter sign up in multiple locations on your website to grow your email list.

A great thing about your newsletter is that you have a captive audience since the recipients choose to receive it. Email pathways are also a great way to avoid getting lost in the noise of the Internet.  Don’t make the newsletter all about your business – share your insights and other industry-related and helpful information with your audience.

Blog.

A blog is one of the best lead generating tools a business can use, yet many fail to understand the importance of it. It allows a company (the writer) to have complete control of what is said and the opportunity to have the undivided attention of the audience. It’s essential to find ways to drive action and measurably grow business outcomes.

Add a section to the blog where readers can sign up for your newsletter and use the margins to promote your products and services.  Share links to the blog on your social platforms – this is one of many ways social media can benefit your business.  Remember, don’t make the blog all about you – instead, share valuable content with your audience.

Networking events.

A lot of action happens in the digital world, but the real world has its advantages, no doubt. Networking events – even those that may not pertain directly to your business – can provide you with valuable leads. Attend so you can meet new contacts, expand your network, and gain referrals.  Events are also a great way to build your brand.  Don’t forget to pass out your business cards!

Infographic.

Infographics have been used a lot, but people still share them and stop to read them when they are able.  They aren’t expensive to produce either. You need to start by coming up with an original idea that isn’t about you, then hire a quality graphic designer, and share the finished infographic socially so your network can pass it along.  You should also submit infographics to publications that cover your industry.

Make sure to put your logo and website URL on the infographic so readers will see it and can visit your site.

Strong branding.

Customers want to support authentic companies and prefer that a company have a strong message that’s consistent across all of their platforms.  Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Be who you are.  Customers want experts and want to support the business that is the best in the industry. Focus on communicating that through your strong branding to make your conversion rates go up.

Many business owners are familiar with the common ways to generate leads online and are used to navigating those platforms. There are countless ways to build relationships, boost exposure, and increase interest – probably even ways that you have yet to try. The key to generating leads is to act consistently and work to provide relevant information to your audience instead of just trying to sell them.

What other methods work well when it comes to generating leads?

The post 7 Ways Your Business Can Generate Leads appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Video.

Video humanizes your brand and builds trust.  There are countless tips to use video for your business if you aren’t sure where to begin. Video boosts conversions and sales and shows great return on investment.  Plus, Google loves videos – your business is 53 times more likely to show up first in Google if you have a video embedded on your website, according to Moovly.

Credit Management.

If you have poor credit, you aren’t doomed. It is never too late to find ways to build strong business credit.  It’s smart to use a credit-monitoring service to monitor your credit to ensure you don’t lose money to fraudulent activity.  Make sure to open your credit statements as soon as they come in the mail and review the statement carefully. Most small business owners aren’t accountants and often fail to realize how important managing business credit is to the success of their business. Hence it is highly recommended to contact the personal tradelines to manage your credit.

Social media and blogging.

Social media sites are the perfect place to showcase your business, products and services. It’s also the place where brands and customers can have meaningful conversations and build a real relationship, which leads to customer loyalty.

Blogging is the ideal way to speak to and engage with your target audience. It gives you the unique opportunity to inject your personality into your blog posts and provide valuable insight to prove yourself as a thought leader in your industry. These actions will help your business acquire more customers.

Security

Thе uѕе оf HID access cards hаѕ bееn prevalent nowadays, аѕ mоrе companies realized thе benefits thеу соuld gеt оut оf іt. Sized like a credit card, thе access card works nоt just аѕ аn identification tool but іt саn аlѕо validate аnd store data. Thе HID card саn аlѕо bе uѕе fоr different application processes. Alѕо referred tо аѕ smart cards by some companies like Smart Card Store, thе HID cards саn аlѕо bear a photo оf thе wearer fоr added security аnd аnу оthеr information typically seen іn аn ID card. Aside frоm thаt, thіѕ small plastic card hаѕ embedded electronics like a microchip, custom barcode labels оr magnetic stripes. Thіѕ feature іѕ whаt makes іt different frоm уоur typical company ID.

Customer service.

More customers than ever are turning to social media to get their customers service requests answered.  Make sure someone checks your accounts regularly – your consumers expect you to be able to help them promptly when they have questions or problems related to your products or services. I. Remember that today, customer service is more important than pricing. Customer service needs to be at the heart of your business model if you want to be successful.

Invoicing software.

Track time, request online payments, and create recurring invoices with invoicing software. Save yourself time and effort and ensure invoicing is done correctly every single time.  Nothing looks as unprofessional as bad invoicing – and it’s essential to come across as a professional at every touchpoint so you don’t lose your customers.

Online payment services.

It was reported that 66 percent of mobile users carried out at least one form of transaction in 2015.  By giving customers the choice to pay in a way other than cash, check and credit card, you can capture more sales. Electronic payments can make the process of getting paid convenient for both the small business owner and the customer.  This form is payment is one that will be big in the future due to the convenience and security of the method.

Email marketing.

Email marketing is a great way to send people the content that they want. You can use email marketing to build credibility and strengthen relationships – people prefer to do business with those they like, know and trust. Email marketing is also a great way to get in touch with people on any device – something that is crucial now that more than half of all emails are being opened on a mobile device.

Running a small business is no easy feat – it’s often you and a few trusted members of your team working diligently around the clock. Turn to technology to help you build your business, take better care of your customers and streamline your operations.

What ways has technology improved the flow of your small business?

The post 7 Ways to Use Technology to Efficiently Run Your Small Business appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

As flexible as this model is, there are still some challenges. The biggest one? Keeping teams on the same page when they lack daily face-to-face interaction. Here are a few tips, tricks, and tools to keep remote teams productively organized and working efficiently.

Project Management

Step number one to getting your team more organized is to get yourself more organized.

If your project management is taking place in your (and your team’s) inbox, you’re in trouble. Emails can easily get accidentally deleted, buried, and ignored. No matter how organized your inbox might feel, your team’s email might not be as well put together. It’s easy for a task to get lost in the shuffle and ignored.

When you have multiple people working on pieces of a project, you’re juggling due dates and assignments. When you need to bring someone new into the mix, you have to start from scratch explaining all of the project details. This takes time and you risk forgetting important details, which could lead to communication breakdown.

To speed things along while at the same time keeping everyone on track with what’s happening, you need a project management tool.

Basecamp is one of the first web-based project management tools. It has seen several iterations over its existence, evolving each time to meet today’s remote work styles. In it, you can set up several different projects, assign tasks to other users (even if they don’t have their own Basecamp account), assign due dates, track conversations, upload files and more. It keeps everything for the project central in one place so you remain organized and efficient.

Basecamp comes with a price tag. The more projects you have, the more expensive it gets. Many small businesses prefer to use one of the free, but very robust, project management tools available.

Trello is perhaps the most simple of the free ones, yet also the most powerful. This drag-and-drop tool lets you create boards for projects, cards for tasks and lists to keep it all organized. It takes a little bit of creativity to set it up for your specific work project, but once you’re going, it’s easy to track who is doing what and when items are due.

Communication Software

Another way to take communication out of the inbox and into a more organized location is with communication software.

Slack is one of the most popular choices for communicating via text with large groups of people. This free chat tool incorporates popular social media communication tools into an internal company communication tool. For example, you can use the @ sign to comment to a specific person. Or, you can use hashtags to organize your conversations. It’s fast to learn and easy to use.

Customer Relationship Management

When was the last time you reached out to your customer? Who was the last point-of-contact with your customer from your company? Do you have a lot of leads sitting in the pipeline waiting to be nurtured without anyone from your company taking charge and reaching out?

A customer relationship management (CRM) tool tracks all of this and more.

If you have remote sales teams, a CRM is invaluable. It lets hungry salesmen know when there’s a hot lead ready to buy. It also ensures a smooth experience for your customer, which helps brand your business as one that’s put together, organized and on the ball.

Beyond sales teams, a CRM can help other departments do their jobs better. For example, marketing departments often times tap into a CRM to do customer research and come up with new campaigns. By having a CRM in place, remote teams don’t have to wait on someone else to respond to an email. Instead, the information they need is at their disposal.

Insightly is one of the most robust small business CRMs. In it, you can pull quick reports to send to other departments, see at a glance who has connected with hot leads and how long it’s been since someone reached out to a customer, review notes about each customer and more. It also has built-in project management tools, which can simplify communication between customer information and tasks.  It keeps every client relationship organized so everyone, regardless of distance, can know what’s happening and how they can better serve your customers.

Video Meeting Software

Even in the constantly connected world we live in and the wealth of communication tools available, distance can lead to disconnect. It’s times like these that it’s beneficial to suit up and sit “face-to-face” for meetings.

There are several video meeting tools to facilitate the reconnection.

If you’re meeting with a small group of people, a quick video call on Skype can suffice. Skype is free and allows you to share your screen and/or share your webcam.

For larger teams, you might want a more robust meeting point online. GoToMeeting is a popular choice because it too has quite a few capabilities. For example, you can share presentations, cameras, allow participants to raise their hand to speak, encourage conversation in the chat box without worry of people talking over each other. GoToMeeting was built for remote teams, while Skype was originally built for more basic face-to-face connections.

Either tool will work. The goal is to get your eyes peering into the eyes of your team so you can reestablish that connection and rekindle the fire in everyone’s belly, even from afar.

Setting Your Team Up for Success

It’s not easy to manage a team of people across a wide distance. Set yourself up for success with a project management tool and CRM. Then, keep the connection strong by using video meeting software to shorten the distance and maintain that face-to-face interaction. Doing this will keep your team engaged and focused, helping you see bigger results from your remote workers.

The post All Around The World: Keeping Remote Teams Organized appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Clicks to your website equal customer engagement. If you’ve got a decent social media following, are publishing content regularly, and are continually increasing your email subscribers, but aren’t seeing a high click-through rate, it’s time to ask yourself a few key questions.

Are Our Headlines Engaging Enough?

Whether you’re writing a blog post, a press release, or an email, your headline (or subject line) must grab people by the eyeballs and get them to click to read more. If yours aren’t getting the kinds of clicks you want, you need to assess why.

Start by reading other headlines. Which pique your interest? Which make you want to click them? Do you see a theme? Some strategies for improving your headline engagement include:

• Use a statistic or number (“Get a 58% Boost in Reads with This Simple Trick”)
• Ask a question (“Could You Use More Money?”)
• Make a list (“7 Things You Didn’t Know About Cats”)
• Keep them short (5 words is a good average)

Test out different headlines to assess which show an improvement in clicks, then use those strategies for subsequent headlines.

Are Our Emails Putting People to Sleep?

You work away on your company newsletter and promotional emails, but people aren’t clicking to buy your products. What gives?

First, look at the data. What percentage of people are opening your emails? (this is called your open rate) Average open rates vary by industry, but you want to see somewhere between 17% and 20%. If you’re not getting that, look at how frequently you’re sending emails. It’s possible that you’re sending them more than people want to receive them, and they’re just deleting those emails you spent so much time developing. Scale back and measure results to see if they improve.

Within the email, assess what you’re trying to communicate. Ideally you have one call-to-action per email, so if you want them to buy a product, don’t confuse them by giving them eight products to consider. Keep the language short (just a few paragraphs) and include several places with the same link you want them to click.

Are People Ignoring Our Ads?

If your digital or pay-per-click ads aren’t generating interest, turn your focus to what the reason may be. Remember: whether you buy advertising on Facebook, Google, or somewhere else, you’re competing with a lot of other activity. Your copy and image, if you have one, need to be eye-catching so that people want to click your ad to learn more.

Keep the copy benefit-focused, meaning you’ve got to boil down the perks that people get by clicking your ad. Special offers and deep discounts, such as free shipping, 30% off, and buy one get one free are sure to generate clicks.

If you use an image, make sure it’s professional-quality. If the ad is for a product, the image should be of that product, not your headshot or brand logo.

You can A/B test ads to see which copy generates more interest, and tweak your campaign accordingly.

If your marketing efforts aren’t getting the engagement you’re looking for, don’t give up. Just assess what you’re currently doing to find places you can improve for better results.

The post Increasing Customer Clicks: Here’s the Secret appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Cloud-based software allows everyone on your team to have real-time access to in-progress work. Plus, there’s no expensive IT maintenance required, so you can save money while also increasing productivity. Win-win for everyone.

Project Management

Having a solid project management platform is critical to the success of your team, whether you’re all working locally from the same office, or you’re spread out all over the globe. No matter your industry, there are lots of moving parts to coordinate. Project management software that integrates with your CRM keeps things simplified. Quickly and easily manage clients, projects, to-do lists and calendars from a central location – accessible from anywhere there’s an Internet connection.

Live Video Chat

Sometimes, business will call for live video chats with a small group of people. With tools like Google Hangouts, Blab, and Skype, there’s a way to host video conferences with small groups of people for free. Blab works great if you need multiple hosts with mostly viewers.  Skype is popular, but not an ideal choice if you want to record the call for later viewing. If your team is all over the world, chances are you won’t find a time that works well for everyone to attend live, so you’ll want the option to view the chats later.

Editorial Calendar

When you’ve got a team of people working, it only makes sense to use an editorial calendar. CoSchedule offers a robust calendar that teams can work on together, ensuring everyone remains on the same page. As an added bonus, it features a WordPress plugin so you can keep your editorial calendar right inside your company blog. You can automatically schedule your posts to go out to Facebook and Twitter, too.

Social Media Management

While CoSchedule can help with social media management to a degree, it can be a hassle to load all of your other social content in the platform if you’re working from your WordPress blog. Tools like Buffer and Hootsuite allow for multiple team members to access your social accounts, schedule posts, and more.

Buffer includes the ability to schedule Pinterest posts, a nice bonus for businesses that need to maintain an active presence on that network.

File Sharing

If you need to quickly and easily share files among coworkers, there are many options – Dropbox and Google Drive are simple and effective. OneDrive, Microsoft’s answer to their competition, is another good solution.

OneDrive is the better answer for small teams who also need cloud-based access to Microsoft Office, because an Office 365 subscription includes the ability to share with other users. Each user on the shared account gets their own 1 TB OneDrive space, plus 60 free Skype minutes a month.

No matter which of these platforms you choose to use, you can download them to your computer and mobile phone so files and folders can be shared directly from your hard drive or mobile device. And, if you have multiple team members who need access, you can control what is shared with whom in just a few clicks.

Screen Sharing

Skype is great if you want to share a screen with a small group, but when more than one person needs control, it’s not ideal. That’s where ScreenHero comes in. Share a single screen, but allow multiple people to work on the document together – each with their own cursor. With the voice chat feature, it’s like working in the same room together.

With the variety of cloud-based tools available today, there’s no reason your remote team can’t operate as a cohesive unit regardless of distance. When there’s something that needs to be done, you’ll be able to find the tool you need to accomplish it.

The post 6 Tools for Unified Teams appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Determining which are your best leads — in other words, those most likely to turn into customers — can help you increase your conversion rate and boost sales. Also, putting more focus on your most likely prospects in your pipeline will save you time (because you won’t be chasing dead-end leads). But how can you figure out which are the best leads?

First, Categorize Leads

Did you realize that 73% of new B2B leads aren’t ready to make a purchase? That doesn’t mean they’re not worth pursuing, but you will want to handle them differently than you would a lead who’s ready to buy.

Create “buckets” for your contacts. These buckets might include:

• People you’ve met in person
• People who downloaded an ebook
• Social media contacts

You could also categorize them by how they ended up in your lead funnel, such as “downloaded our 10 Reasons to Invest in Financial Software ebook,” which you’ve targeted at a particular audience.

Next, Score Those Leads

This part is fun, and a bit like a game. You can assign points to each lead to give it a score. The higher the score, the better the lead. You can give points for things like:

• Job title
• Location
• Interactions with your brand (downloaded whitepaper, attended webinar)

Also take away points for any negative actions that a lead takes, like unsubscribing from your email list.

Decide on Nurturing Techniques

Even if a lead ranks high on your scoring matrix, she might not be ready to buy from you right now, so it’s imperative that you invest the time and energy in nurturing her appropriately. If you can further break down your bucket of high-scoring leads into where they are on the buyer’s journey, you can give what each lead needs at the particular stage she’s in.

For example, if a lead is in the Consideration stage, she’s past needing to be informed about your general category of product. Now she’s comparing you to the competition. Make it easy for her. This is the ideal time to send her a free graphic that puts you (in a favorable light without being promotional) against the other top players in your space. Remember: you want to communicate that you’re trying to help her on her buying journey, not push her into a decision, so focus on being informative, not salesy.

Leverage that CRM

Your CRM platform can be hugely helpful in nurturing your best leads…but only if you maximize your use of it. Take copious notes about your leads’ activities, and tag each contact with that lead scoring information. You can even more a contact from one category or stage of the buying cycle to the next so you can easily view everyone who’s at the same stage.

These days, we have so much data at our fingertips, that chasing bad leads is nearly obsolete. Instead, put your efforts toward ensuring that those ideal leads grow to love and trust you, and eventually become customers.

The post Using CRM To Nurture Your Best Leads into Sales appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Why You Need Video

You should be using video to get more customers, but what makes it different from other marketing approaches? Customers get more information in a shorter amount of time by viewing one well-made video. Videos give your customers an impression of you and your business. It’s more personal than an email or blog post. Video is used in marketing in many ways today. Short videos posted to Vine and Instagram are short and easily shared. Tutorials and vlogs on your website or YouTube are a bit longer and more informative. Whether you film it yourself or hire a professional, video is one marketing tool you need.

DIY Video

Small businesses often take the DIY approach to save money where possible. Apps such as Vine and Instagram make it possible to create short videos. They’re free and simple to use. You can make new videos quickly, edit clips, and reach all your followers instantly. This option is excellent for things like contests, previewing new products, and even speaking directly to your followers, such as Q&A videos. Doing it yourself isn’t without pitfalls, however. While apps make it seem easy, they can’t make a poorly shot video look good. Take a few steps to make your DIY videos look their best.

Storyboard. Use paper or software to plot out each scene for your video and the dialogue or narrative that goes with it. Come up with a few versions, then narrow it down to the best one.

Lighting. Poorly lit videos look awful. Make sure you have at least one bright light source. Whether it’s sunlight through a window or a floor lamp aimed at your product, be sure the thing you’re filming is brightly lit.

Script. Stumbling over your words makes you sound like a novice and increases editing time. It helps to practice speaking a few times before shooting, even if it’s only a few second clip for social media. The script is even more important when filming a longer video, such as a tutorial for YouTube.

Sound. Tiny smartphone microphones aren’t the best at capturing clear sound in your film production. Be sure there is silence when you’re filming (unless background noise is intentional). Try using the earbuds with mic that came with your phone for clarity. You can also purchase a microphone that plugs into the 3.5 mm jack on your phone or a clip-on mic.

Stability. Don’t make your customers nauseous with shaky video. Invest in a tripod before shooting videos for your business. Choose a full size tripod or a little Gorillapod^® depending on what and where you’ll be filming. Some lower end tripods can droop or slowly move while filming, so look out for that while testing it out.

Image licensing. Avoid getting sued by only using commercially licensed images and video clips. You’ll either need to purchase a license, get permission from the creator, or use Creative Commons (CC) images. Be aware “free to use” and CC works are not always commercially licensed. Read the fine print to be sure you’re allowed to use the image.

Professional Video

Even if you’re able to film a decent video yourself, you may not realize just how labor intensive video editing is. It can be a lengthy and complex process to get to the final, polished version of your video. While you may be capable of doing the editing yourself, it may make more sense as a business owner to pay a professional to spend hours creating a great video for you while you focus on other responsibilities.

Hiring professionals to create your video will ensure a polished final product. The obvious difference in quality gives the impression that your business is trustworthy. When it comes to video ads, tutorials, help videos for your product, and any video featured prominently on your website you’ll want to consider investing in a professional to create your videos. The impact it has on your customers is invaluable.

The post Video Production Tips for Small Business appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

No business wants to have to break the news to their customers that their personal information has been compromised due to a security breach. Use these tips for top-notch security to ensure your business never has to make that painful announcement.

Keep Passwords Strong and Difficult to Guess

Strong passwords are the first line of defense. If you’re worried about being able to remember passwords, create a naming convention. Start a word that’s easy to remember, and spell it with a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters. Then, attach something, either at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end, that reminds you what the account is for. For example, you could use FAC for Facebook, GMA for Gmail, etc. Avoid using things easy to guess, like pet names and birthdates.

For a Star Wars fan, “skyw4!kerFAC” would make a strong Facebook password that’s easy to remember.

A naming convention should make your passwords easy to remember (or work out), so you won’t need to write them down. Don’t use the same password for everything – that makes it really easy for hackers to take over accounts and wreak more havoc.

Use Secure Servers

Host your website on a secure server. You may have to pay extra for security certificates, but that HTTPS will help you. In 2014, Google announced secure sites will get a small ranking boost. If your business takes online payments of any kind, SSL is highly critical.

Keep Firewalls and Antivirus Running

Make sure you have firewalls and antivirus software on all computers in your network, and any others remote workers may be using, to keep data on your local machines safe. These should always be running since your computer is “always on” the Internet, and these should always be kept up to date. Run scans on a regular basis to remove viruses and other malware hackers could use to access your data.

Check Permissions on All Applications You Use

Keep employees in line with the right permissions on everything you use. This way, only the people who need access to sensitive information have it. Don’t share files with more people than you have to. While your employees are likely trustworthy, you never know when a disgruntled employee may leak private information online.

Back up Data on Physical Drives

Always have copies of data on physical drives – whether they are external hard drives, CD/DVD-ROM, or flash drives. Even if the data isn’t breached, there’s always a possibility the hard drive will fail – as all of them eventually do. This way, you’ll be able to load your data onto a new machine and keep working.

Consider a Cybercrime Insurance Policy

If your business deals with a lot of risky information, or you just want extra peace of mind, you could invest in a cybercrime insurance policy. These policies can be quite pricey, depending on the level of coverage you want. However, they will help recoup some of the costs in the event there is a data breach. This can also assist with regaining customer trust after a data breach.

No plan is ever 100% fool-proof to protect your business data, but implementing these strategies can go a long way toward prevention. It’s also a good idea to only collect data your business needs, and to use a privacy policy so employees can follow best practices. Security is one of those things that is much better to be proactive, rather than reactive.

The post Is Your CRM Data Safe From Hackers? appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

While you’re out there getting things done, your staff might be anywhere, working from home, traveling, at a conference, or meeting customers across town. Most businesses are far more mobile than ever.

One great thing about Insightly is that you can take your CRM wherever you—and your tablet or phone—need to be. Snagging first place in GetApp’s ranking of the top CRM solutions for Q1 2016, the Insightly mobile app lets you to take your info, insights, contacts and calendars with you no matter where you’re headed.

Never Miss a Beat with Instant Sync

Keep up to date while out and about with the Insightly app’s ability to instantly sync your changes, updates and more to your home (Web) CRM. Manage your team’s day-to-day agenda by scheduling events, and adding or assigning tasks, in Insightly calendar.

You can also add comments to any notes you take while away from “home,” such as voice recordings, pictures from your device or camera, or just plain old text. With information that instantly syncs, you can be sure all users are working off the latest information.

Real-time information means your whole staff is apprised, even if the customer forgets something and calls back immediately. The next rep can pick up right where the last call left off, and the customer won’t waste time repeating the story to multiple CSRs.

Dynamic Contact, Lead and Customer Management

Stay on the pulse of what’s happening with your customers day-to-day with mobile contact management. The Insightly mobile app lets you scan business cards to create contacts and leads, set direct relationships between records by “linking” them and see opportunity values for each customer or prospect. Make a call from within your app and a note is automatically attached to the contact, creating a call log.

No more fumbling around for a contact’s cell number because you forgot to punch his digits in and his business card is back at the office. No more forgetting which customer that new lead is connected to and why it’s even relevant to your business. No more hearing, “You guys just called me about this an hour ago,” from the other end of that now awkward touch base call. You’ve got all the contact management essentials with you, accessible and updateable at a moment’s notice.

Sales and customer satisfaction often hang on how fast you respond. Fast, reliable answers are an important element in a competitive market. Instead of stuck-in-traffic excuses, your customers hear, “How can I help you?” Access builds the trust you need to nurture relationships and keep the interest of your customers.

Everything You Need at your Fingertips

Available for tablets and phones, the Insightly app supports Android and iOS users alike, so there’s no reason you can’t be a step ahead. App users have access to project management and event scheduling, notification setting and social network integration, as well as the ever-useful power to search your CRM for the right info right when you need it. The Insightly mobile app also comes in five different languages, in case something other than English floats your boat.

Let’s face it—you are busy. And staying connected and organized is hard if you don’t have the right tools to make it happen. The right CRM for you will be available whenever and wherever you are. It’s just that simple.

The post This Mobile CRM Keeps You Connected On-The-Go! appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Gleanster and Yesmail Interactive conducted a survey that found that close to 80 percent of brands do not have sufficient data to launch an effective marketing campaign. The basic information can be easily accessed from numerous sources – but getting to know the customers well is harder than it has ever been. In order to increase conversion rates, one must have a clear understanding about who the customers are and what drives them. When a business makes the decision to put more effort towards better understanding their customers, they are following one of many marketing best practices for small businesses. This is a big step in the right direction.

Ready to make that step? Here are some ways to use customer data for a better customer experience and smarter marketing.

Leverage social media.

Everyone wants to know how to become the smartest Internet marketer out there, yet only 38 percent of marketers utilize data from social media that could help them better target their audience. Having a social media account is a must for businesses that can use it to interact with the current and prospective customers. Social networks provide insights into customer’s likes, habits, and what they are really buying. Customers often have complaints about a product or service and by resolving those issues through social media, business can learn more about customers’ likes and dislikes.

Leverage new technology.

Technology has progressing at an astounding rate over the last decade. From the smart phone boom has come entirely new communication channels like social media and huge businesses like Facebook. It’s these new channels that gives consumers more power over how they interact with brands and businesses more ways to communicate what makes them better than their competition. As businesses look for the next technology boom to leverage there’s one that stands alone as probably the most potentially impactful to people’s everyday lives. 3D technology has the potential of changing how people see and interact with the world around them.

3D and augmented reality technologies are making a big splash at every technology conference across the world and for good reason. The social and business implications of a completely immersive experience are mind blowing. Businesses went from understanding very little about their customers, beyond basic demographic and psycho-graphic profiles, to knowing who influences them and what their likes and dislikes are in just a few years. With these technologies people can interact with businesses in entirely new ways.

With brands brining more immersive experiences to their customers, the customer affinity becomes more tightly woven with the brand. This leads to better marketing and longer customer relationships.

New technology has always given us pause when consumers and businesses first started using them but over time they become part of our everyday lives. Society feels more comfortable with the human interaction with technology while business become more adept at leveraging it. While social media is today’s top connection point between consumers and brands, the future holds a much more connected experience with technologies like 3D and augmented reality. It will be up the businesses to be early adopters to come out ahead.

How do you get to know your customers better?

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This is true if you’re planning a new business or product, or improvements to existing businesses or products. If your website plays any role in customer acquisition or sales, understanding the elements and design of competitors’ websites can be critical. Here are some fundamentals.

1. Finding the competition. I assume you have a good idea who your competitors are, but if you don’t – or you want to broaden your vision – use this Google search: “related:www.mybizURLhere.com.” It will return a list of sites that Google believes have a purpose similar to yours. See if you’ve missed anyone.
2. Architecture and infrastructure. Once you have a feel for who’s out there, what platforms are they using? Wappalyzer is a free Chrome and Firefox extension that will identify the software that is powering any website. The better you understand how the websites of your competitors operate, the better positioned you are to create something that’s superior.
3. Graphics and user experience design. Every site has a “look and feel” and this can separate the winners from the losers. Sometimes it’s the most critical element of a site or a product. Recently, 888Ladies published a post that takes readers through their entire process of developing a new circus-themed game. They knew that they had to create something entirely unique and brought virtually their entire team on board for the development process – including measuring up the competition.

A key finding for them was the fact that competitors were not yet using 3D animation, so achieving that became a design goal early on. It’s obvious how important killer graphics and an intuitive user interface is to a gaming company, but frankly those elements are just as important to any business that has a presence on the Internet.

In ecommerce, we have all probably abandoned a purchase because the checkout process was too cumbersome or confusing. Work hard to identify those kinds of weaknesses in your competition. These analyses take the human touch. Have people thoroughly explore and test competitors’ websites and note their strengths and weaknesses. And unless you’re going for a “retro” feel, be sure your graphics are in line with today’s style standards.

4. Traffic sources. When user acquisition is important to the success of your business, you need to know where your competitors are getting their Internet traffic. SimilarWeb and Alexa both offer limited free traffic analytics and more in-depth information with a paid subscription. These traffic-source websites are most useful when a small business is trying to compete with a big business. Smaller sites often don’t generate enough data to register on these services.
5. Social media audience. Use Twitonomy to gather insights about your competitors’ social media, specifically Twitter, audience. See what hashtags are getting results. With a paid subscription here you can download a list of your competitor’s Twitter followers. If you felt it was appropriate, you could then Tweet an offer to them.
6. Google alerts. Set up Google alerts for all of your major competitors. These are almost like a spy plane roving the Internet. You can have reports automatically emailed to you on whatever frequency you desire. You’ll be able to keep a close watch on them and find out when anything significant occurs with their business and it gets mentioned online.
7. Sales outlets. If you make a product that is sold in stores, knowing the outlets where your competitors merchandise is sold is critical. Explore all of your competitors websites and look for pages like “Where to find our widgets” and put all of those locations into a spreadsheet or customer relationship management system. When you have that information, explore those websites trying to find the name of the person who would be the buyer. Begin a relationship with that person.
8. Keywords. You certainly want to spend some time using Google’s keyword tool in Adwords. Also check out Übersuggest. However, very often your competitors will have their important keywords identified in the code of their webpages. In your browser, find out how to “view source” and then search for this phrase:

• meta name=”keywords”

Following this will be a list of keywords that were deemed important, at least when the web page was originally put together. See if you think they apply to your business and if so, would they be worth securing with Adword bids.

You can see from this list that some of this is using tools to “spy” on your competition, but in virtually every case, human analysis is even more important. Use the tools to dig deeply, but then take some time to determine what is most important and act on those items first.

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