How to Get the Right Approach to Technology in your Business

For business owners, technology embodied in digital tools is quite handy for business growth. They can therefore effectively leverage technology to achieve their business goals. Business owners rely on technology to drive their development strategies, particularly in areas of deployment of the right tools to manage ongoing operations. Technology can be effectively leveraged to help the workforce to release their capabilities. This ultimately helps to stimulate business growth. Here are a few things business owners can do to help them optimize the impact of tech tools in their business.

Think Value: Every business is out there to deliver value. If you think value as a business owner, you can deliver value. You must be able to invest in workplace tech in order to effectively deliver value in your business. The deployment of new tools in your business must be tied to a clear understanding of how new capabilities will produce valued outcomes. If tech tools are not able to provide value, they are unhelpful. It is value every business needs to enhance its ROI. If you think value, you’ll be able to deploy the right tech tools to enhance ROI. Your workplace business decisions about work tech tools must always revolve around outcomes and results. That’s what delivers the right value.

Enable Changes: Every business environment is dynamic. Changes are therefore inevitable. Enabling changes must be a core management competency. If mangers understand the business model and mission, it empowers them to respond to changes appropriately and adequately. They need the right information flow to do this effectively. That’s where tech tools come in handy. These are tech tools that will enhance free flow of info up, down and across the business outfit. Somehow, this enables frictionless communication and increase in productivity.

Distribute Authority: Tech tools deployed to allow certain layers of the business wield some authority can enhance productivity. With these tools, you can automate workflows by giving managers direct access to information and transactions. When authority is distributed in this manner, it enables and empowers line managers to make people-centered decisions within their sphere of authority. This eliminates excessive oversights or unnecessary approval requirements. Business efficiently is greatly enhanced this way.

Prioritize Data-Driven Growth: Data is the lifeblood of digital solutions and a key driver of organizational agility. When businesses increase the amount of data available to their digital tools, it directly helps to increase the value these tools can deliver. Therefore, businesses that can effectively leverage data to drive better decision-making and create personalized workforce experiences tend to do better business even amidst stiff competition. Data driven technology can greatly help to enhance operations in every department of the business.

Prioritize Digital Competence: In the present digital age, managers who have no digital competence are increasingly endangered. Many businesses are gradually doing away with their services because the digital marketplace is inherently dynamic and hugely competitive. Modern day managers must have the capacity to regularly update digital platforms with info and marketing content. Sending emails up, down and across the business structure is now a routine task for managers. Digital platforms presently need to be updated and enhanced at a much faster pace than previous on-premise software models. Any manager who does not want to be left behind must have the capacity to keep up with this fast pace. He must be sufficiently digital competent to be able to do so. So, to ensure that technology provides maximum value for the business, managers/employees must be sufficiently competent at using the digital tools available.

Last Line

Most businesses now search more for digital competence when hiring. The reason is obvious. They need personnel who can cope well with business tech tools to help grow their business. They need people with requisite knowledge and experience who can effectively execute digital strategies for their business.

Essential Online Marketing Tips for Ambitious Small Business Owners

Are you running a small business online? If you do, how about having a proven online marketing strategy that can help you generate more sales? That’s one essential strategy you need right now because as more and more people are shopping online, so more small business owners are moving their businesses online and doing more business. If you are an ambitious small business owner and you are desirous to make more sales online, you need essential and effective online marketing strategies that can work according to your needs. Below are some online marketing tips to enhance your small businesses marketing strategy.

Directly Target the Right Customers

Without customers, you cannot expect to be in business. The Internet is a deep and fiercely competitive digital market. If your small business is online, that is where it is expected to source customers from. Hugely challenging no doubt! Because the Internet has many users and the competition out there is stiff, advertising your brand without a good target market can be time wasting and fruitless. If you directly target your customers with your marketing messages, it makes it easier for your potential customers to find your business online and interact with you. If you use distinct buyer personas to identify your target market, your marketing messages return better results and you make more sales as a result.

Optimize Your Business Website for Mobile

Many more people now depend on mobile devices to do business online. As a result, mobile marketing has gained in popularity in recent times. Google now attributes over 70% of its data traffic to mobile devices. Now that’s one huge market any smart business owner cannot afford to miss out of. So, small business owners can easily take advantage of this traffic and expose their businesses to the global arena. What to do? Just optimize your business website for mobile searches.  Mobile-specific marketing may need a considerable investment, which can be challenging, especially for small business owners. But, the cheapest and most practical way around that is to optimize your business website for mobile devices and you get to do more business out of these devices.

Market with Affiliate Programs

If you want your small business to do well in online marketing, just launch an affiliate marketing program for it. That way, more affiliates/vendors help you to market your products through their own online channels in anticipation of earning commissions. These affiliates are people who believe in your products and are willing to help you sell to earn commissions. They share links to your products and even your marketing messages on different online platforms to reach a massive audience. If you make sales that are directly attributable to the efforts of these affiliates, you'll need to pay them an agreed commission. However, affiliate programs may not be suitable for all kinds businesses online. For this reason, you’ll need to evaluate what your own business needs and take appropriate steps to market your products for best results through affiliate programs.

Take Advantage of Online Customer Reviews

Because many online reviews rank well in search engines, they can help boost your small business. Through these reviews, your brand can gain more recognition online and you make more sales as a consequence. Through reviews, previous customers always sincerely give their experiences with a particular product. Reviews can also be a great way to encourage internet users to take particular actions like making a purchase for instance. Because potential customers tend to believe in reviews, many online shoppers rely on reviews to make their buy decisions. Even if some reviews are negative, you can respond in such a way as to keep the customer satisfied and your business better positioned to meet such challenges.

Market on Social Media

Every small business needs proper marketing to do well online. In today's business world, nearly everyone is on social media around the globe doing one thing or another. Getting your small business in social media environment is one great way to put your brand in front of billions of social media users. If you want potential customers to see and associate with your brand online, just get it on social media. Doing so is one great way to stand out from your peers and become a reputable brand worldwide. The hugely popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and others have in-house tools that can help small businesses market their products to a very wide global audience. Depending on your type of business, you can do your own evaluation and use only platforms that are really beneficial for your marketing activities. Once you have your business on any of the platforms you choose, your main focus should be on engaging with social media users and sharing informational posts about your business and products consistently. This is one great way to establish your unique brand voice online, and it helps your business a great deal.

3 Justifications for Online Business Ideas in a Pandemic

Covid-19 pandemic may have been restrictive but it succeeded in making online merchants think outside the box. Instead of killing businesses outright, it ended up creating more opportunities for online business owners. Many new business owners discovered that it has become easier than ever for anyone to start a business online with or without prior experience in the business. For such people, the icing on the cake about starting a new business online is the freedom to make money from anywhere there is internet service around the globe 24/7. Now that the world is still being held down by variants of the pandemic, are you thinking of starting your own business online too? Great if you do. It may well be all worth it in the long run. Many experts agree that it a good idea and quite justifiable too to start an online business even now. Here is why.

You Can Leverage Advanced Technology

Without a doubt and because of the challenges of the pandemic, technology companies are becoming more advanced in supporting e-commerce and online businesses in general. The deepening of the internet and its versatility too are becoming more advanced as well. More than ever before, it has become much easier now to start an online store and take payments easily even with minimal setup all hassle-free. This alone makes this time such a great time to leverage many online tools and resources to open and operate a successful e-commerce business.

It is Increasingly Easier to Trade Online

The pandemic forced many merchants to adopt e-commerce business models while closing shop in their brick and mortar businesses. Many of them found it increasingly easier and convenient to do business online despite the restrictions of the pandemic. This is because many more people for same reasons now prefer to shop online. Millions of people are thus getting used to buying and selling online and it is a 24/7 global business. Really quite appealing to join up if you are not already in it. Anyone with a great business idea despite the pandemic restrictions can take their businesses online and reach a wide range of audiences with the help of different online platforms and tools all performing wonders on the internet.

You Have More Business Opportunities

This is quite so because of the versatility of the internet for business purposes. Without a doubt, the pandemic has made it evident that many things can work online. The opportunities are limitless and ironically, this appears to be about the best time to start a business online really and from within the comfort of your home to boot. Ranging from online fitness to online courses and home delivery, many opportunities emerged from the pandemic to cater to people’s changing needs and business owners are taking good advantage of them all. These business owners readily leverage online platforms to connect their businesses to the right customers. Anyone with the right business ideas can thus find and explore a lot of business opportunities as a result.

Final Thoughts

At the outbreak of the pandemic, because of the pervasive and panicky lockdowns, fears of business losses were quite high. Even now with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic variants still threatening humanity, people have learned to adapt their businesses to reality instead of caving in to frustration. That’s thanks to the internet and e-commerce. Aside the public health threat, the pandemic disrupted the activities of small businesses, large corporations, and even the world economy at large. It forced many people to work remotely, and brick and mortar businesses had to think of creative ways to meet consumers’ needs during the pandemic. Many found real justifications on the internet to avoid total business closures which was inevitable for those who couldn’t adapt quickly. Part of that adaptation was for business owners to move into e-commerce businesses in different industries and niches such as launching a podcast, becoming an app developer, and going into affiliate marketing, or launching any smart idea that can take real advantage of the internet to bloom into a successful online business. For that, the world of business moves on steadily regardless.

How to Use AI to Acquire and Retain Customers

Online marketers are increasingly relying on Artificial Intelligence, AI for problem-solving in their marketing activities. They do this by using AI powered aps some of which are voice-activated virtual assistants, auto responders, CTAs, customer service and retail and e-commerce automation. Online business owners now depend more and more on the power of AI and machine learning to significantly increase brand awareness, enhance customer engagement, improve user experience, meet customer expectations and to find solutions to even more complex business problems. 

 
Direct Marketing Benefits of AI

You can achieve many milestones in your online business which allow you to acquire new customers and retain existing ones if you do the following.

Use AI-powered social media tools to help you monitor and gain valuable insights about your brand.
Use AI to identify gaps in your content marketing strategy. That way, you can manage to create content that’s relevant to your target audience.
Integrate AI into your e-commerce site to reduce shopping cart abandonment.
Use AI to significantly improve your website user experience by making it intuitive, accessible, and easy to navigate.
Use AI to help you generate high-quality leads that are likely to buy your products and become customers.
Use AI to personalize and tailor-fit your product recommendations based on your customers’ preferences thereby increasing repeat purchases.

No matter the nature of your online business, it is possible for you to acquire and retain customers more efficiently than what it normally takes to get same things done manually. Here is what you need do.

Improve Your Website User Experience

As an online business owner, your business window into the internet world is your website. That is where visitors can interact with your brand, respond to your call-to-action, and to purchase products. To make these interactions smooth, it is important that visitors to the site have a great experience while navigating through the site. With AI, you can improve your website user experience several fold by way of personalized recommendations, search relevance and seamless customer service through AI chatbots. In particular, the presence of AI chatbots on your e-commerce website contributes to a great user experience on the site because they provide 24/7 assistance and support in the absence of human customer service.  They help users to get accurate answers to their inquiries more quickly and efficiently when compared to manually scrolling through text-based FAQs.

Evaluate the Performance of your Content

This you can do by using AI to identify gaps in your content marketing strategy. If you’ve been creating content for a while, by deploying AI, you can easily identify the gaps, find fixes, and evaluate the performance of your content marketing campaign. Even if you’re into retail or e-commerce business, you can use AI to identify the gaps in your content marketing. Your content may be directly focused on your products and their features, but through AI, you can better determine the relevant content that addresses your audience’s needs and pain points faster and more accurately.

Pre-Qualify Prospects and Leads

When your new leads are not converting into sales well enough, you can rectify the situation with the help of AI. If you have a bit of experience in online marketing, you’ll know when you’re not getting good sales despite the high traffic your website is receiving. If you are experiencing this, it could mean you are not taking some marketing actions correctly. It could mean your CTAs are ineffective, your content marketing strategy is poor, you are targeting the wrong audience, you are promoting your products through the wrong social media channels or you are using the wrong type of Sign-up form. With the help of AI tools, you can extract relevant data to help you learn more about your target audience. These tools also provide predictive analytics on your customers’ behavior. By using them efficiently, you can improve your lead generation strategy because they’ll help you to identify which leads to pursue, where to find them, and how to effectively engage them.

Cut Down on Cart Abandonment Rate

If you run an e-commerce business and you experience a high cart abandonment rate, it could mean certain things are just not right with some operations in your website. Many online shoppers may abandon their shopping carts because they’re not ready to buy yet, high extra costs, privacy concerns, complicated/cumbersome checkout process, privacy concerns and most commonly, not enough customer-friendly payment methods. AI-powered chatbots can come in handy to address these issues by diligently guiding customers through their shopping journey. AI chatbots can with smooth conversational approach give customers a nudge to prompt them to complete their purchase. They also act as a virtual shopping assistant or concierge that can let a customer know about an on-the-spot discount, a time-sensitive deal, a free shipping coupon, or any other incentives that will encourage them to complete the checkout. Even lost orders due to cart abandonment can be recovered with the help of AI. If AI does these for an e-commerce website, it can lead to an increase in conversion rate for the business.

Social Listening

Marketers can deploy AI for social listening for potential customers. This is simply a process in which AI can be used to analyze the conversations, trends, and buzz surrounding your brand across different social media platforms. Social listening effectively analyzes what’s usually behind the metrics and the numbers. It determines the social media sentiment about your brand and everything else relating to how people feel and relate to your brand. Such AI generated data/information you get through social listening can be used as a guide in your strategy to gain new customers. Without a doubt, getting this type of intricate data can constitute an enormous and very daunting task for human beings. AI helps out very nicely.

Increase Repurchases

Marketers can increase repurchases with predictive analytics made possible with the use of AI. Predictive analytics is the process of making predictions based on historical data using data mining, statistical modelling, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other techniques. Through it, marketers can generate insights, forecast trends, and predict behaviors based on past and current data. Its practical use is when marketers rely on it to predict customers’ propensity to repurchase products as well as its frequency. When used to optimize marketing campaigns, AI-powered predictive analytics can generate customer response, increase repurchase, and promote cross-selling of relevant products. Predictive analytics helps marketers to focus their marketing resources on customer retention while targeting a highly motivated segment of their markets that may be happy to return and repurchase more products. This helps to save on ads costs for marketers. AI makes it possible.

Provide Personal Recommendations

Most online shoppers really value personalized marketing experiences. The reason brands are able to boost their sales when they tailor their recommendations based on consumer data. Recommendation systems’ algorithms typically rely on data on browsing history, pages visited, and previous purchases. Thus, smart AI can accurately analyze customers’ interactions with website content and find relevant products that will interest the individual customer. This is how AI makes it easier to target potential customers and effectively put the best products in front of the site visitors. With AI, recommendation engines are able to filter and customize product recommendations based on each customer’s preferences and correctly match the customers’ preferences with the right products. Because of this element of personalization, marketers can effectively acquire and retain customers with the help of AI.

How to Transform Affiliates to Great Business Owners

Affiliates with employee mentality always want to get paid before rendering a service whereas those with business owner mentality always want to add value or render a service first before any rewards. With this distinction, it is easy to work on affiliates to turn around their mind sets. In that quest, here is what best you can do.

1. Talk them into accepting delayed gratification as against instant gratification.
2. Get them to work to render a service first to get rewarded later.
3. Show them the benefits of being their own bosses.
4. Let them see why it is better to be employers instead of employees.
5. Let them know that as business owners they have no fear of being fired.
6. Let them know that employees are a dime-a-dozen while employers are fewer and in a select club.
7. Let them know that employees have fixed remunerations whereas business owners have unlimited earnings.
8. Let them know that employees make money only when they work whereas a business owner earns residual income.
9. Tell them that an employee is only an asset in the system while the business owner owns the system.
10. Let them know that a business owner earns from his/her investments while an employee earns only by selling his/her labor.
11. Tell them that business ownership confers unlimited power whereas employees have very limited power.
12. Let them know that employers give Instructions/Directives whereas employees take Instructions/Directives.
13. Show them how employers lead while employees follow.
14. Show them the advantages of working to earn as against earning to work.

For these and many other reasons too numerous to mention here, your affiliates can easily see that it is best for them to see their SFI business like a business and to treat it as such. That is the best way for them only if they but knew.

Best wishes.