Business

Every small business owner or entrepreneur knows how vital it is to spend their money wisely. Especially when it’s such a fine line between having enough money to keep everything moving and running into the red, knowing how to prioritize your money is key. So when you know that you need to devote some money to marketing but you don’t have much to go around, prioritization is going to be your lifeline.

To help you in figuring all of this out for your organization, here are three tips for prioritizing your marketing budget when funds are limited.

Work From Your Goals

When trying to prioritize how to spend your money on marketing, the best way to get your head around things and figure out where your money will have the biggest impact for you is to really nail down what your goals are for your marketing in general.

According to Brian Morris, a contributor to Business2Community.com, businesses like law firms might want to attract new clients. For other businesses, getting repeat business or making more sales could be the goal of their marketing. But until you’re able to clearly understand and define what you want your marketing efforts to achieve, you can’t hope to be able to prioritize where you’re putting your money in order to most effectively reach your goals.

Learn How To Best Run Campaigns

Just throwing your money into the category of marketing won’t do you a lot of good, especially if you don’t have a lot of money to go around. In this situation, you’ll want to be very strategic about where you’re putting your money and what’s going to give you the best return on your investment.

To help you with this, Keith Bendes, a contributor to Forbes Communications Council, advises that you allocate your marketing money to whatever is going to give you the biggest impact. Usually, this will mean putting your money only into one channel for any given campaign. So whatever area or platform you think will most resonate with your target audience for that specific campaign is where you should be putting your funds.

Invest Time Rather Than Money

When money is low, there are still ways that you can get your marketing going by investing your time rather than your dollars.

One great way to do this, according to Helen Pollit, a contributor to Search Engine Journal, is to get creative with your online marketing. While you may know the best practices for things like SEO, nitpicking all the little technicalities may not be the best use of your time. Instead, do what you can to set yourself apart from your competitors and make a splash with your audience.

If your marketing budget is small, consider using the tips mentioned above to learn how to prioritize your efforts and investment.

Reviews are a critical assessment of works or businesses. They are essential for the success of every business as it doesn’t only give the business credibility, but also go a long way to influence the consumers decisions about the company. The active collection of reviews from consumers will also go a long way in making your satisfied consumers turn to your brand ambassadors without you even trying. US Reviews, for instance, deal with not just reviews but also experiences, opinions, and ratings both from the consumers and also for the consumers. They focus on companies that offer different services ranging from repairs, technical, communications, and so on. The following are the benefits you stand to gain through the collection of reviews from consumers:

• Reviews Influence Potential Consumers’ Decision

Active collection of reviews go a long way in influencing potential consumers decision to buy things or engage your services. Review collection is a perfect marketing strategy. It is an ideal strategy because it is a way for you to get more customers without intentionally going out to look for them yourself.

• Credibility

The collection of consumers reviews will also help you to save face and, in turn, make you credible enough to increase sales.

• Feedbacks Keep You on the Alert

Consumers feedback will not only build trust, and for a good relationship, they will also help to keep you on your toes. Being alert means that after you must have actively collected reviews from consumers, you tend to be on alert and try to take steps on working on the areas that you are still lagging.

• Boosts Trust in Your Services

When potential consumers read the reviews written about your products from other consumers, they tend to trust your services as much as they trust personal recommendations from their friends.

• Fosters Producer-Consumer Interaction

Your active collection of reviews from consumers will go a long way to help you move closer with your consumers enough to understand their needs and provide adequately.

• Helps you Measure Consumer Satisfaction

Through consumers reviews, you will have the opportunity to measure the satisfaction rate of your consumers. Measuring the satisfaction rate will, in turn, help you in knowing the methods to keep using and those you need to change for the realization of optimal satisfaction. Another benefit this will bring is the increase in sales as a happy customer will keep patronizing you.

• They Serve as a Source for Information to Other Consumers

Through reviews, consumers come to realize that they are not alone in the journey of this purchase. They each read about other people’s thoughts on a particular service you render. It may, in turn, boost the level of trust they will have in your products or services.

Conclusion

It is a good thing that you now understand the importance of the active collection of reviews from consumers. However, it is equally crucial that you know the benefits attached to making the most of the feedback gathered from the consumers.

When it comes to spending, it is vital to keep track of what you spend both as an individual and as an organization. Tracking your spending as an individual might be easier since you are majorly responsible for most of the spending. However, when it comes to organizational spending, it might be a bit more difficult. Different people are heading different departments who have to make expenses for their department. Even in the case of small businesses, your one or two other staff might sometimes have to run expenses when you are not around. Keeping tab of them could be very difficult and disastrous. Here are some of the best ways to keep track of your business spending.

Expenses could be submitted ahead of time
It is often best to have a system where every department submits the expenses they hope to make in advance for approval before they are implementing it. This is why budgeting is very important even at national levels. Towards the end of every month or year, every department should submit expected expenses for the next month or year. This would be properly vetted by the accounts department and subsequently forwarded to the MD or CEO, who would finally approve the amount that was approved to be disbursed to the different departments.

All records of expenses should be kept
There can sometimes be changes in the spending of the department. They could sometimes not end up buying some particular products or they could buy at a lower or higher price. Based on this, it is still important for every department to properly fill out every single expense they make. Once this is done, it would be possible to reconcile how much was approved for the department and how much was spent. If there are excesses, it would be expected that the excesses be returned to the organization.

Emphasize on receipts
Encourage the collection of receipts for every single expense made where possible. Every expense listed should be followed by a receipt number and photocopies of the receipts added when the reports are being submitted, with the option that the original could be requested where necessary. This would help to ensure that figures are not inflated. You could occasionally visit the stores or call numbers on the receipts to confirm the purchase and the cost of the products.

Being mindful of what you want to buy
If you run a small business, it is important to always be mindful of what you want to buy. Do not go into impulse buying as you might end up buying a lot of things that your organization does not need. The implication is that when there are actual needs, it might be difficult meeting up with them.

Balancing quality and price
When buying items as an organization, you do not always have to go for premium-priced items except your organization can comfortably afford it and your clientele is dependent on such types of item. Otherwise, you should concentrate more on balancing quality and price when you are buying items. High prices do not often automatically mean higher quality. Sometimes, it might just be a matter of the brand name.

Using apps to keep tracks of purchases
You could introduce the use of apps such as Pleo to further help with keeping track of your business spending. The apps go a long way to help you create a soft copy that could be backed up and retrieved more easily even years later.

 

How motivated are your employees? Do you know that employees can make or break a business? Successful businesses direct lots of resources towards making sure that their employees are motivated. As a small or large business looking for success, you should also invest in employee motivation. Here is why employee motivation is crucial for any business.

• Enhances the commitment of employees

Challenges are common in business and only companies that can find solutions to them survive. Committed employees are not only more productive but also more creative in finding solutions for the challenges your business is likely to face. Motivating your employees enhances their work commitment. This way, you will not only be more productive but also gain an edge over your competition by finding solutions to any issues faster.

• Heightened employee satisfaction

Generally, employees work better and are more productive when they are happy and satisfied with their work. Motivating your employees makes them feel part of the company as it cares about their wellbeing. This creates a positive attitude among employees, and this is good for your success.

• Better efficiency among employees

Inefficiencies can eat into a company’s potential and lead to its downfall. Keeping this in mind, you should motivate your employees to better their efficiency. Motivation creates a supportive work environment, which makes it easier for employees to collaborate on projects. Additionally, they can share ideas and tasks much more easily, leading to no time waste.

As it’s clear from the points mentioned above, the most significant benefit of employee motivation is increased productivity. Better productivity means that you are more efficient as a company. This improved efficiency creates room for growth.

Tips to increase your employee motivation

Now that you understand the benefits of employee motivation, you must be curious about how you can improve it in your organization. You want to see its benefits in your company, don’t you? It’s actually less challenging than you imagine. Here are some tips for you:

• Promote open communication

Sometimes, the brilliant ideas come from the most unexpected of people. Brilliant ideas are not just the million-dollar ones but also those that make the business just a little better in one way or another. Opening the communication channel in your business will make even the lowest-ranking employees feel like part of it. Each employee will know that they can give out their suggestion to the management freely.

• Value every contribution

It’s not just about the management listening to the suggestions of employees but also valuing them. Valuing the opinion doesn’t mean that you have to implement it. You can appreciate the idea by rewarding the employee for thinking outside the box. The reward can be as unsophisticated as recognition or a thank-you card. This creates confidence in employees and motivates them to work.

• Provide advanced training

Providing your employees with advanced training will motivate them. Investing in your employees’ training works as a goodwill sign. It shows your employees that beside them working for your company; they also benefit by becoming better at their craft; thus, they feel motivated.

If you are looking for personalized thank-you cards to reward your employees with, check out Mixbook. They boast of an easy-to-use website, exemplary customer service, and convenience. Besides their business offerings, they also have social categories like holiday cards and photo wedding invitations.

If you are a business owner or you are thinking about launching a business, there is no doubt that you have realized that having a presence online is important. Having an online business may sound easier than one that exists in a physical location, but it takes just as much work to keep up. If you want to succeed in your online business, you need to stay organized, provide excellent customer service, and communicate with customers and clients successfully.

There are many software programs and websites available to business owners of all types. Whether you run a large or a small online business, this software can be extremely beneficial to your business strategy and operations. If you run an online business and want to ensure your success, here are the three types of software that can help you get there.

Software To Your Assets and Departments

If you are a business owner, you know how important it is to keep everything organized, across all departments. There is software available that will allow you to track IT assets and manage IT tasks. An IT asset management software will allow you to close the gaps between your departments and keep track of all your assets in one place. This will give your team the clarity and ease to complete their jobs with precision and confidence.

You can also attach each asset to action, making task flow simple and easy for all team members. In an online business, IT is an all-important department, so it is critical that you manage your IT assets and keep everything running smoothly so that you can keep your business up and running and growing.

Software To Provide Great Customer Service

Many will say that customer service is one of the most important parts of a business. Providing high-quality customer service is a proven way to boost your company’s bottom line and ensure success and upward growth. Additionally, good customer service is one of the top ways to ensure your customers keep coming back to your online business and that they encourage their networks to patronize your business as well.

Word of mouth is highly beneficial. One way to make sure you’re making your customers’ lives easier is by investing in a high-quality customer service omnichannel software that will connect across assets to create a seamless customer service experience. You can even combine this software with an existing CRM such as Salesforce to create a truly unified portal for customer interaction. Salesforce call center software will make your customer service team’s lives easier as well as your customers, which is something everyone can be thankful for.

Software To Manage Communications

Do not underestimate the power of newsletters and email blasts. These types of communications, in conjunction with a nice quality CRM software, can be a key to success for your online business. Sending newsletters is cost-effective and could even be free if you are looking to send sparse or simple ones. They are great ways to publish your business’s successes, current promotions, and otherwise increase your brand awareness among clients and potential clients. You can provide updates on your business and potentially entice older customers to come back and patronize your business. Additionally, newsletters can be customized based on the audience they are being sent to, so you can reach niche groups more easily.

Keeping your brand’s name in someone’s inbox is a great way to increase the probability that you will make a sale or otherwise stay top of mind in someone’s head. All of this can increase business performance by boosting sales and reputation.

You probably spend a certain amount of time thinking about your financial portfolio. Even if you’re not a professional investor, and even if you’re not an accountant or an actuary – you need to understand finances well enough to create a nest egg for yourself in the long term.

Because of this, you at least have to have a basic understanding of investments that you can utilize to your long-term advantage. Perhaps you consider property investment the best choice. It is something that many people believe in as a pillar of excellent financial stability.

Second, you can spend some time learning how to invest in the stock market to diversify your portfolio. And third, if you are more into valuable physical objects, you could consider investing in gold and silver and having the material itself somewhere you can get to it if you need to.

Property Investment

If you look at some of the smartest investors, they will tell you that property is where it’s at. Since land is a fixed thing, the value of it keeps going up. Because of that fact alone, it makes a lot of sense to consider property investment is one of the best ways to consistently make a good return on your investment.

Property investment can mean putting money into a house that exists on a piece of land, and it can also mean putting money into land itself. It depends on the context of the investment.

Smart Stock Market Investing

How much do you know about the stock market? If you’re like most people, you know that it exists and that it makes certain people money somehow. But when you begin learning how to invest in the stock market on a more logical level, you see that there is lots of room for you to make practical decisions about your financial future.

You can follow the advice of some of the best minds in the industry and typically get quite a good return on your investment, assuming that you put money into the right stocks at the right time.

Gold and Silver

Some people like investing in tangible things. In that case, consider putting your money into gold and silver. Not only can this be an enjoyable investment because of the relative certainty behind it, but it also gives you something shiny to hold in your hands. If the world’s financial institutions fall apart, the people who have invested in gold and silver will find themselves at a distinct advantage.

If this sounds like an exciting way to invest money for you, there’s plenty of research to show you the best way to invest in gold and silver and the best time to do it.