The Importance of Social Media Management Tools

The primary purpose of social media tools is to improve productivity and efficiency. An ideal marketing tool should:

• Help spend less time managing social media counts
• Make the management of multiple accounts easier
• Help set up better social media campaigns and achieve excellent results

On the tool’s dashboard, find the following helpful features:

Team Collaboration: Support multiple team members on a single account

• Multiple accounts: Manage more than one social media account from major platforms
• Monitoring: For checking keywords, hashtags, other accounts, etc.
• Analytics: To gain insights and reports on social media activity
• Scheduling: Schedule posts for publishing automatically

Before choosing any tool, consider the following factors:

• Product direction
• Customer support
• Overall user satisfaction
• Usability
• Easy-to-learn
• Compatibility with the business needs

Social Media Marketing Tools

Agorapulse

• Agorapulse is currently considered the best social media marketing tool available. The dashboard is simple and all the accounts are listed on the left side of the dashboard, which makes switching between accounts easy. Every feature on the tools, including social media inbox, publishing, and monitoring are all on the top of the dashboard.
• The social media inbox contains essential updates from the accounts requiring attention. It is similar to a traditional email. Set automated moderation rules, which will allow Agorapulse to tag, hide, flag, or assign content to view only the most relevant messages in your inbox.
• The other noteworthy feature is the editorial calendar. The tool does not only allow you to publish to your social media accounts and schedule them, but you can also organize the posts on a calendar, beautifully. This helps the deciding the publishing dates and plan your updates on social media.
• The monitoring tool keeps track of all shares and mentions on social media. Set the tool to monitor specific keywords, hashtags, and places on Instagram or Twitter.
• The reporting interface of Agorapulse is appealing and detailed. The analytics covers audience, engagement and brand awareness, which is usually the most important data. It is also possible to view the number of posts and comments reviewed and estimated response time.
• The CRM function of Agorapulse is perhaps the most distinctive feature that sets it apart from other dashboards. The tool makes it incredibly easy to monitor followers and friends to know the most engaged users. The tool also shows potential brand ambassadors and influencers, including followers with the highest followers.

PostPlanner

• PostPlanner was once a tool for planning Facebook updates. It has evolved into a versatile marketing tool for improving engagement on social media.
• PostPlanner allows you to watch out for high performing content containing any hashtag, topic, or on an account. The information will help generate ideas for updates that will improve reach, user engagement, and consequently, traffic.
• The tool also helps with content development. Just add preferred blogs, hashtags, keywords, and social media accounts to share or use to develop future posts.
• The tool has a post planning feature. The monitoring and reporting aspects are not detailed.

Hootsuite

• Hootsuite is perhaps the most popular social media marketing tool for business out there, and one with many concerns. The tool allows you to connect up to 35 different social platforms, a feature you will not find on many other dashboards.
• The monitoring feature is also easy and allows you to keep tabs on keywords, mentions, hashtags, etc. It is not comprehensive enough, and in some cases, using Facebook insight or Twitter Analytics provide more information.
• Hootsuite allows scheduling updates, but that’s not all. The AutoSchedule feature publishes posts at the best time for maximum effect.
• The contacts feature shows your followers and who you’re following. From the dashboard, you can follow and unfollow users and use tags to sort and assemble everyone. The new campaign feature is still in beta mode and will make it easy to set up contests, sweepstakes, and gallery.
• The interface is not complicated but can be confusing for starters. Also, the analytics and price of the pro and business plan are major drawbacks.

SproutSocial

• The dashboard of SproutSocial is minimalistic and simple-to-use. SproutSocial has Smark Inbox which collects messages in a single section to make it easy to manage and monitor. This particularly helps if you run high traffic accounts and continuously.
• Schedule posts and invite the team to review and edit the shared calendar. The analytics reporting is excellent, but the most remarkable feature is the possibility of evaluating the activity and engagement of team members.

Sendible

• Sendible full-fledged marketing tool with features for audience engagement, publishing schedules, social activity monitoring, and analytics. It is compatible with Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, and blogs.
• There is a post calendar where you can monitor the publishing activity on social media. Sendible also helps to track mentions all over the web, not just on the platform. Sendible has integrated Google Analytics to monitor the effects the marketing campaigns are having on your website traffic.
• The advantage of Sendible is the easy to use interface, including support for SMS and Email Marketing integration.

Buffer

• Buffer is a primary tool designed to make publishing on social media easier and faster. It supports personal use and team collaborations. The best feature of buffer is perhaps the Pablo integration. Pablo allows the creating and publishing of images, seamlessly. This is beneficial because images get more engagement and increase traffic.
• Buffer allows scheduling, provides analytics and helps to generate post ideas. It is useful for those who want to increase engagement, but many features are unavailable in the basic plan unless upgrading to the business or enterprise plan.

Oktopost

• Oktopost is an outstanding social media marketing tool dedicated to B2B marketing. The interface is somewhat similar to Hootsuite, but cleaner and appealing, and provides a better user experience.
• Watch keywords, brand mentions, and company pages. The social inbox notifies you of all activities on your social media accounts. The content curation feature helps create worthwhile content for the audience.
• The Social Amplification feature of Oktopost is perhaps its best. Make employees brand advocates and thought leaders for the company on social media platforms.
• The analytics and reports are detailed and well outlined, making it easy to monitor engagement and conversions on social media. For a B2B company or marketer, he or she will find this management tool incredibly beneficial for the social media strategy.

Tailwind

• Tailwind is an excellent marketing tool for image-based social media networks like Instagram and Pinterest.
• Pinterest lovers will love this tool. Tailwind allows you to pin content to several boards, seamlessly drag and drop content on your calendar, and track mentions and conversions. The program also has a browser extension for making multiple pins from any website.
• Using Tailwind can wildly change the way you post pins to strategically optimize your pin calendar based on the audience’s activity. It also provides insights into the correctness of content for publishing.
• The Instagram features are still unavailable but promise to be similar to those of Pinterest. Ultimately, Tailwind is the perfect option for Pinterest Marketers.

MaySocial

• MaySocial makes it possible to manage Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Tumblr accounts on one main dashboard. There is a social inbox for notifications coming from all the platforms.
• Dashboard allows you to watch social networks for engagement and brand mentions for faster response rate. Set up and manage social media promotions and schedule posts for publishing.
• Like Buffer, easily create visual content for social networks. MaySocial gives access to millions of royalty-free images from different websites. Edit photos with this tool.

Social Quant

• Many consider Twitter the best encompassing platform for customer service, more reach, brand visibility, social media marketing, and for generating traffic to a website. Social Quant is designed to help get the best of twitter – more user engagement, more brand awareness, and increased targeted followers.
• Social Quant works by discovering more targeted followers using the set keywords so that following consists mainly of people who are interested in the business and content. This will help get better engagement, brand visibility, and traffic.
• In summary, Social Quant is excellent for marketers who want the best results from their twitter accounts. If you don’t have enough followers or engagement on your page or you are a beginner seeking to build your audience fast, then Social Quant will be the most useful tool.

BuzzSumo

• This is one of the best tool for fresh, viral content on the internet. With Buzzsumo, input a topic or set of keywords, and receive a detailed report of the most popular posts in each group, including the list of influencers who are sharing the posts.
• It is excellent for discovering new ideas for social media promotions and content marketing campaigns, and influencers in a business that can help boost your brand reputation, visibility, and followers.

Depending on your needs, these social media marketing tools are useful for generating results for your social media pages. Every marketer has different needs, and these tools have various features to fit those requirements. It is up to you to decide which one is the most suitable.

The post 10 Powerful Social Media Marketing Tools You Should Know About appeared first on Time Clock Wizard.

Business process optimization is a strategy designed to help companies increase the productivity by optimizing their operations. It is a subset of business process management (BPM) and is based on the understanding that optimized business goals are achievable with streamlined business procedures. Business process optimization will help:

• Simplifying Workflow
• Eradicating Redundancies
• Predicting Changes
• Enhancing Communication

The Benefits of Business Process Optimization

Businesses continually have to face competition and intimidation from other companies, upsetting technologies, and irregularities. By optimizing business processes, companies can enjoy results that would help them scale in a never-ending wave of change:

• Reduced Risks
• Optimized Resources
• Market Compliance
• Stability
• Lessened Risks
• Guaranteed Quality
• End-to-End Visibility

Business process optimization can serve as a strategy for managing difficult situations and operating in inhibiting environments. Business ideologies or tradition is the primary factor for success and efficiency. It can either promote or detract business operations.

Service delivery to customers will often expose the flaws in business culture because even the effects of great business growth tactics will be useless or severely hindered. Many organizations barely pay attention to these factors and therefore continually have to struggle to make significant progress.

Building the proper business culture is equivalent to the success of your business because all business processes anchor to this central side of a business.

Strategies for Business Process Optimization

Understanding the Mission

As opposed to the belief that people buy products or services, they actually buy the outcome. They pay for the results, benefits, answers, timesaving, fulfillment, improvement, advantages, or whatever purpose the product serves. The primary mission as a business is to make their positive expectations a reality by sponsoring, selling, and providing the correct outcome which clients are paying for.

When starting to consider how to can deliver positive results to customers, you will feel reasonably confident of the role you are playing to satisfy clients, regardless of the business. Also, in doing so, you are being adequately rewarded.

Make Integrity your Watchword

Operating ethically as a business, delivering products and services as specified, and sterling performance is essential. Ideologies and policies concerning the relationship with the employees and customers must be governed by fairness and the honest opinion that customers are entitled to the best services every time.

Understand the concept, “if it is proper for the customers, it is the company’s worthiness.” This is the act of prioritizing the customer’s wishes over the company.

Optimization

Stop settling for less and believe that you deserve the best results from your efforts. At this point, request and receive nothing lower than the greatest and optimal results for the company’s actions and activities.

This is achievable by incorporating and leveraging every effective marketing strategy necessary to obtain the best results and receiving the best possible return from the least possible expense of time, energy, labor, and money. Also at the least likely risk to the company while alleviating stress, creating free times, and ensuring continual control and absolute certainty.

Build a Balanced Team

People often consider recruitment as a way of getting people with the suitable skills, experience, and accomplishments for position. Yet, it is hard to find those because some requirements can be conflicting in a single individual. If it is impossible to get someone who possesses all the desired traits and experience, bringing together a team of different skills can help combine these qualities.

By building a balanced team, someone in the workforce with the skills and experience is required to deal with a set of responsibilities effectively. Each worker plays his or her role towards creating a balance needed to build and develop the company.

Give Due Credit to the Team

A significant percentage of the most successful companies on the globe accredit a considerable part of their success to satisfied, cheerful workforce because those employees know they are genuinely valued. This has a significant effect on turnover. Staff turnover will reduce and will save cost on recruitments and training new workers.

Absenteeism will also reduce, and there is a high chance nothing will go unaccounted for. When employees are willing to stay, experienced, care about the company and cater to the customers, that will lessen customer complaints, better satisfaction, and higher profits because customers will spend more and stick for longer.

Value the Clients

Clients are the reason to stay in business. Consider them a lasting friend. Modify the business policies and ethics to protect their interests and give them the best level of satisfaction possible. They are the beneficiaries of project management.

Be Concerned For the Customers

It is rare to find passion and enthusiasm in the same sentences when it comes to business. People will be more willing to do business with a company if it shows genuine passion and concern for the services and method of delivery. If you are sincerely concerned about benefiting the lives of the customers, you will easily attract their attention as iron to the magnet.

Make Workplace Fun

Many profitable businesses in the world accredit part of their success to adopting fun, play, laughter in the workplace to boost morale, increase participation and interest. Acknowledging and gratefulness can contribute mainly to building confidence and productivity among efficient employees.

Incorporate a progressive plan for creating a motivated, highly efficient team through many validated tactics for improving satisfaction and increasing productivity. Adopt an employee-based corporate culture with the aim of increasing profitability.

Adopt Verified Success Methods

This is crucial to process optimization. When beginning to adopt and apply the success strategies that other industries have tested and proved, you are saving money on learning. By employing invaluable and validated methods and procedures for profit, you also gain a remarkable edge over competitors and witness records improve significantly.

Empower Your Employees

When companies stick unyieldingly to their policies, what they are merely telling the customers is that your policy is essential to you than serving them. Empowerment entails allowing your employees to make decisions during their dealings with the customers. This means letting them do anything required to make the customer happy.

Empowered employees understand and stay grateful for the chance they have and are likely to use discretion and best judgment to suggest better and less expensive solutions to issues instead of strictly following inflexible company policies.

Continuous Training for Growth

The development of a business is directly influenced by the development of the team members. Through constant training, build workers in a business to be at their best performance against competitors. Ultimately, capitalize on future rewards while building a company for the present.

The more active the training is, the better a company’s effectiveness. This process has a remarkable influence in the following ways:

• How workers process the company’s objectives
• Helps define the basic performance levels
• Yield desired results
• Ensures constant solutions to problems
• Results in a consistent method of handling customers
• Affects the functionality of things in the business

Hire Qualified Workers

We take the utmost care when selecting life partners and raising our kids, paying necessary attention. However, we are prone to choosing potential employees from one or two interviews, and once they are onboard, they usually realize that they have to cater for themselves.

This comparison shows the discrepancy between work and family settings. Since most of our adult daytime life is dedicated to work-related processes, we might as well be cautious when hiring the suitable candidate – people who are concerned and are driven by results.

When choosing employees that are sincerely pleasant and have the proper attitude and principles, discover that things will work out smoothly. People are not trained to be nice. Empathy and care must be an integral part of someone’s nature—they must genuinely feel it. If they do, their co-workers will feel it, so will the customers. This will help achieve the best results without much struggle and hard work.

Create Opinion Polls

Having a means for receiving opinions is an essential tool for business management. Suggestions and opinion polls can be designed to be a central aspect for the continual development and improvement of a business. You and your team can continually hold meetings to discuss how to better performance, better ways to approach a solution, and soon, discover ways to get better. Regardless of how small the improvements are, the discoveries made can have a significant impact on a company’s transformation.

Define the Worker’s Motivation

How does one ensure that employees are well motivated and driven? Many businesses fail in this aspects because their method of defining employee’s motivation is primitive or unrealistic. Ways to determine motivation include:

• Absenteeism
• Employee turnover
• Customer service
• Theft
• Attitude Surveys

Never take staff motivation for granted. Every business can implement policies for motivating their employees accordingly. The advantages are great, and by the time you evaluate the return on investment, the results will be evident.

Other strategies for business optimization include:

• Coaching for performance
• Communicating the main values
• Systemizing all areas of the business
• Implementing a business software

Business process optimization requires planning and identifying the process that needs optimization and setting goals and purpose. This will then allow you to evaluate the current state of the process to determine its performance and unnecessary fluffs. Implement the revised procedure after eliminating the undesirable elements and monitor the performance of the process carefully and make necessary adjustments until the desired results are achieved.

The post Project Management and Business Process Optimization appeared first on Time Clock Wizard.

However, that does not always happen that way. A sales manager can choose to motivate their team members towards meeting sales goals or discourage them, which will negatively affect the business’s profitability.

It could be trying to figure out the missing link that will drive a team to achieve amazing results in term of sales and profits. This is why we have collated tactics used to practice good sales team management.

In some cases, it is hard to create a compromise between ensuring the best performance and setting sales rep with new targets. As the manager, the success of a team lies in their ability to fulfill performance targets. Yet, it is sometimes hard to control and inspire reps.

Fortunately, few strategies will help give the team the drive they need to achieve success. Ultimately, the sales team is crucial to the company’s success.

The Essence of Sales Team Management

Sales are as crucial to a business as oxygen is to humans. Lack of sales could spell disaster for a company. With internet sales growing rapidly, there is an increasing need for a sales team to get up and stay active.

Relationships are essential for sales, and the internet won’t always create those relationships. Only an efficient sales team can do that.

How to Manage a Sales Team Effectively

Building a strong team will not happen in a day. However, input is necessary to keep a team productive and organized.

Recruit the best people

If the people that are managed are insufficient, efforts will be futile. Think less about the company culture and worry about their background, references, assessment results, and the interview process.

Assess the sales applicant – check for five essential qualities:

• Focus
• Empathy
• Responsibility
• Optimism
• Ego-drive

Empathy is the person’s ability to relate with a customer, identify with their objections, and make them feel important and valued. An empathetic sales rep will have no problem gaining the trust of potential customers without seeming hypercritical. A sales rep must be able to study customers, show care and render solutions.

A rep needs focus to finish tasks and meet targets. They are self-starters, coordinated, and can work with minimal supervision. A responsible employee will not push blames on others in the face of complications. They readily accept errors, learn from their mistakes, and never allow obstacles to deter them.

A salesperson must stay optimistic, even in the face of potential defeat. Failure should not make them think less of themselves; instead, they are inclined to find alternatives to transform the situation. Ego drive is close to optimism, but it deals with competitiveness. It has to do with self-motivation and defined goals.

When finding a person that fits into this criteria, it makes sense to further train them on sales techniques.

Provide Sales Training

Studies show that up to 58 percent of employees who pass through organized on-boarding and sales training procedures usually remain in the company after three years.

A sales team needs to have complete and detailed information about the product, or they will flop at closing the deal. Ensure that a sales team are familiar with the details and features of the product so that they won’t have any issue answering customer’s question or solving their problem.

There are videos online from industry professionals that will reduce the stress of training. Also, use training materials from the internet such as videos for training purposes. It is possible to monitor their progress to verify all the reps have gone through the training sessions.

Include practical training and give them accurate feedback. Monitor their sales calls, check recordings and offer helpful feedback.

Set an Example to Motivate them

Having targets and giving rewards for accomplishments can inspire a sales team. Be clear about the training goals and inform them of the areas where they need to improve. If they meet their target, tell them.

Take note of their performance in a difficult situation and let them know what they did right or wrong. If they can improve, offer detailed tips highlighting where they need to improve and what to do.

Create Flexible Sales Procedures

Unrealistic sales procedures can be a great hindrance to the performance of a sales department. Studies have shown that creating proper sales processes is effective. This is the guideline they need to meet the sales target, create leads, and close deals.

Employees have to understand how to utilize emotions to win clients over. When emotion is no longer running, the deal is as good as dead.

Create a process for sales, while noting that each transaction is going to be different from the other.

Develop Powerful Strategies

Create powerful strategies to keep sales reps focused on goals and achieve results consistently. Let the team know the power of being strategic. They can hone their sales skills by relying on a process or guideline through various stages of the sale and land more deals.

If the sales strategy works with results, show the team the evidence and they will be more inclined to stick with the guide.

Set Defined Goals

Let the team know what goals to achieve. The guide for the sales department may entail finding flaws or problems, getting possible products that solve the problem and presenting them as the solution.

This guide and sales data functions as the direction for stick. Essential sales data and guide should be accessible to every member of a sales team. As much as possible, be transparent and open to give the team a chance to unlock the full capabilities of the sales data. Let them know what is expected of them to reach.

Respect Every Member of The Team

It would be impossible to gain respect respect isn’t given. Be ready to admit mistakes even if having a flawless track record of following strategies and making the right call during sales.

Remember that you are the leader and that does not exempt you from learning from your mistakes. Do not lose your temper or speak angrily when you miss a sales target or fail to close a deal. Evaluate the situation, learn from them, and share those lessons with the team.

Be open to learning and receiving suggestions from a team. Any member can have brilliant ideas that could improve sales. Therefore give them a chance to speak and don’t talk down on them when they do.

Communication is essential. Build a relationship based on respect and understanding– be receptive to the team members.

Simplicity is Key

Customers don’t want complicated solutions. This is where “KISS” rule comes in handy in the sales strategy. KISS is the acronym for “Keep It Simple, Stupid.”

All customers are interested in is if the product works or solves their problem, and what other buyers are saying about it. A story has to be clear and concise – inform the clients that the product is effective and that people love the solution.

Attempt to simplify value proposition to a primary, concise, and pleasant line.

Analyze Data and Results

Sales data and KPIs give the sales department valuable insights that explain the performance of your methods. Analyze the data and results to know what is working – which sales members are getting the best results, which strategies are working, which contact method is generating sales.

Periodic analysis of this data will display what to modify or leave intact.

Give Regular Feedback

Regular feedbacks lets team members know their position. When providing assessments, it is advisable to start with the good news. Let the person know where they are performing well and proceed to tell them areas that require improvements.

Utilize the SMART feedback model for this. Feedback must be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.

Ensure consistency. Feedback must be regular to keep the team in the proper direction. If possible, arrange a weekly feedback meeting with each team member.

Create Effective Communication

Scheduling regular meetings are necessary to keep contacts with the team and receive updates. Use conference calls and emails. An effective medium is Slack. Slack places all a team’s communication in one system. Create multiple categories, share files and organize communication channels.

Motivate the Team with Rewards

Rewarding a team for meeting sales targets boosts their motivation. Rewards could be lunch or dinner, day offs, gifts, or performing a task for them. These would motivate the entire team to deliver. Reward team members by taking them to the movies, sports games or a bowling alley.

Encourage Learning

Invest in the team’s training and keep them up to date with industry trends and strategies to keep them on top of their game. It is easy (or sometimes free) to get books, podcasts, eBooks, or webinars.

If possible, sponsor team members to conferences and training programs.

Make Work Fun

Being on a sales team doesn’t have to be boring. Create fun moments with the team to improve the working relationship. Your efforts do not have to be extravagant. Have contests, a costume party, or even create allocated gaming times. Like the old saying goes: work hard, and play.

How to Manage a Sales Team Remotely

If the salespeople are not on site (virtual sales team) or have to travel, managing them can be more difficult. Fortunately, technology makes remote management easy. Also, working remotely does not mean that productivity is not possible.

• Invest In The Right Technology

Ensure employees have the proper technology to work effectively. Do not leave employees to sort their hardware or software themselves. By providing the necessary equipment for work, all work files stay on the company’s system and preventing compromise of data security.

Also, keep the services and products updates and install good antivirus software.

• Trust Your Employees

It is harder to supervise your employees if they are working remotely. However, this is not an excuse not to trust them. You need to trust them to get the job done.

Try to understand your employees without making any assumptions or judgments. If you have any questions, ask them.

• Build Healthy Relationships

Discussions with employees do not always have to be professional. Talk about life, pets, and hobbies with the team. Let them know they can reach you if they have issues that can affect their productivity at work.

Connect with your team using Google Hangouts. Monitor and check in with them, and keep them updated about any changes in policy or operations.

A sales team will be as good as your managing capabilities. Do not stop trying to learn more about getting the job done. Sales Team Management entails being visionary, strategic and focused. Only then can you impact team members significantly.

The post Sales Team Management: How To Do it Right appeared first on Time Clock Wizard.

According to WordPress, about 409 million people read blog posts monthly. This statistic means that if a business does not have a blog yet, it is losing a large audience and a chance to generate new leads and customers.

Creating useful blog posts depends on just one factor – starting. Writing and optimizing the blog is crucial in ensuring that is captivating enough for people to read. Before we delve into tips that can help build a successful business blog, let us discuss why blogging is important.

The Benefits of Blogging for Business

1. Drive Traffic To a Website

When creating a blog post, it is necessary to add an indexed page to the website. This increases the chances of showing up on search engines and drives organic traffic to the site. It lets Google and other search engines know that the site is consistent and active and that it deserves attention for future blog posts.

Blogging also increases attraction on social media. Anytime someone creates a blog post, he or she is creating shareable content for social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest – which will increase exposure to a new audience that is uneducated about a business.

Blog content is a great way to ensure activity on social media, rather than creating different content entirely for social media pages. Blogs can be a content depository. Not only will this ensure powerful social media presence, but business owners will also be driving traffic to websites through social media pages.

2. Conversion of Traffic Into Leads

When generating traffic to a website with a blog, this is your chance to turn that traffic into leads. As we mentioned earlier that every new post on a site is a new index page, every post is also a way to get new leads. This method is very simple – include a converting call-to-actions to blog posts.

This calls-to-action could be a link to free eBooks, fact sheets, webinars, or trails – anything that could prove valuable enough for users to part with their information. The lead generation works in this simple process:

• User visits the website
• Notices the CTA for a free trial
• Clicks on the link and gets redirected to a landing page asking for his/her information
• Fills the form, submits the information, and receives the free offer.

Remember, not every visitor will become a lead, and that is normal. What is essential is blogging and including the CTA buttons.

3. It Helps Build Authority in the Industry

When consistently updating a blog with answers to questions that customers have, you are setting your reputation as an industry leader. This works, particularly for sales and service experts.

If visitors find answers to their queries through a website, there is a high likelihood they will follow through with a purchase. Previous posts have settled their concerns regarding the product or service before they made a decision. If visitors are familiar with products and sales process with others’ reassurance, they are likely to have more productive and informed conversations with sales reps.

4. It Generates Long-Term Results

Dedicate time to publish one blog post daily– you manage to get 100 views and 10 leads. The following day, you get about 50 views and 5 leads as more people discover it on social media or read their emails. After a while, the attention dies down, but you have gotten about 150 views and 15 leads.

The blog post is not visible on search engines, which means that in the following days, weeks, or months, one will keep getting traffic and leads from the article. The result is not instantaneous. Results come along the way and will generate hundreds of leads and views.

These types of blog posts are better called “compounding” posts. Not every article published will generate results this way, but the more quality and relevant posts made, the higher their chances of becoming compounding posts. A study has shown that about one in ten blog posts eventually become compounding blog posts.

This should show the potentials of business blogging, although the results may not be immediately evident, with time, and see a considerable increase in the traffic and leads generated without necessarily having to make any further investment. The bulk of the job was completed when the decision was made to post.

Why Is Blogging Important?

There are different reasons for blogging aside from those listed. However, they are not as important. For instance, use a blog to test run campaigns before investing time, resources and money heavily in them. This will give insight into what to expect.

Use a blog to identify the kind of audience that finds the business appealing. While this may not be the most important use of a blog, use it as an outlet for communicating relevant information about a business. This is usually in the form of press releases. This works if one already has an audience and saves time from sending a story to journalists and praying they will publish it.

Business Blogging Tips

If the decision is made to pursue a blog or if a current blog needs help, some of the following tips can help.

• Consistency is Key

Blogging doesn’t have to be perfect, though consistency is important. It is not healthy to post five blogs in a week then take a break for another one or two months. A blog will lose its value without consistent content. The process gets more comfortable with time. What we recommend is creating a posting schedule for regularity.

Typically, on the average, plan to have four posts weekly or 16 times monthly. Companies who post 16 or more posts months get three times more traffic than companies posting less than four times monthly.

No, you don’t have to commit all your time to create blog content. The primary job is to run a business, not to write. However, allocating part of your time to blogging at the chance you get will contribute to the business’s growth. If possible, assign the blog to an employee or outsource.

A blog can include topics related to a business and the products or services rendered.

• Conduct Keyword Research

Also, consider what people are searching for. There is no point publishing posts that no one is going to read. This is how keyword research helps.

Keyword research entails finding popular keywords that people use on search engines. For instance, people often search for how to color hair. If running a hair extension business, create an article titled “How to color your hair easily.”

Include the keywords in a blog post as written and distribute them evenly. This will give an article a better chance to rank on search engines where people will see it. Also, performing keyword research is a great way to get ideas on what to write.

• Use Visuals

Incorporating visuals like images or videos help improve user engagement on a page. Many readers have a short attention span and therefore want to have as much information as they can within a short period. When they are through reading, they should have an overview of the article. When combining visuals with written content, users are likely to remember up to 65% of the information it contains, in contrast to only 10% when there are no visual cues.

Use infographic art or chart to note the critical points in articles. This would increase the rate of page retention and engagement. Readers will also remember the content quickly.

• Make Blog Posts Long Enough

Ideally, blog posts should be long enough to contain all the necessary information necessary to pass to an audience. Also, ensure that the article can include all the essential keywords.

Mostly, the article should be informative and valuable to an audience. Evaluate the article – if it is something that would interest you, then it will probably intrigue your readers too.

Usually, longer blog posts perform better in search engines. A study conducted showed that the top articles contained at least 2,000 words and above. This does not mean that articles always have to hit the 2000-word mark. Aim for 1,000 words at least and always remember that quality trumps quantity, always.

Don’t forget titles. Blog titles are crucial, not just for attracting the attention of readers, but also for the attention of search engines. Ideally, titles could contain between six and thirteen words.

• Address Customer’s Concerns

Find ideas for blog posts from customers. When customers ask questions about concerning a business or anything related, note them down and use that to generate blog titles.

Addressing customers’ questions and concerns through blog posts have twofold benefits. First, it helps in answering frequently asked questions that customers are worried about. Secondly, it allows one to come up with the content that will potentially address others with related issues.

• Invite Guest Contributors

Blogging can be difficult. Inviting guest publications on a blog will help save time and give the blog a different tone and perspective.

Also, having a fresh perspective regarding a business can be illuminating. It might give you a different outlook on a matter.

Invite a brand influencer or industry leader to publish an article. Set up interviews with business leaders and document the questions and answers in the blog post.

• Create Summaries of Industry News

Another way to get fresh content for a business blog is by making a weekly or monthly summary. This can comprise high traffic articles that readers would find interesting from the past week or month; summarize them and explain the benefits of each.

Business blogging should be a crucial component of marketing strategy, aimed at getting more visibility for a brand online. Business blogging is a marketing medium, the same way social media and emails work, for boosting business growth.

The post The Benefits Of Business Blogging: How to Achieve Success appeared first on Time Clock Wizard.

Businesses are starting to take a new approach with SaaS operations. SaaS utilities simplify the process of accessing data once it is available on the internet. This gives companies the chance to host and ensure efficient IT support, in turn, providing reliable network security, effective collaboration, better features and better pricing. SaaS is a revolutionary technology and is quickly growing in appeal.

We have witnessed the exponential growth of many apps and SaaS, recently. These developments made softwares more accessible than ever before. If a someone was looking for a particular service, there is a high possibility they may already have an app or cloud-based service to provide an aid in his or her endeavor.

The intense competition between service provides sometimes renders business owners idle. It is common for business owners to not realize the potential benefits offered by these systems.

Keep reading for many excellent SaaS for business and tools to consider and how to evaluate these tools for efficiency. One of the most biggest benefits of these tools is the chance to manage a virtual workforce properly. Business owners with a physical location will find them suitable for their location as well.

Typically, there are four categories for business operations:

• Sales and Marketing
• Research and Development
• Production
• Operations

If considering and evaluating cloud-based computing systems, the first step should be to sort them into these categories. Looking at a company’s needs and history, business owners should able to tell which areas are lacking and need improvement. This will help decide how to allocate money to get the best value. Some of the tools demonstrated here apply to more than one single business category.

Cloud Solutions For Small Business Owners

SaaS solutions for research & development purposes is the powerhouse of a business. The level of importance we give to ideas is the most noteworthy development in business. There isn’t a day that goes by that someone does not have a groundbreaking idea that is published in the newspaper.

Effective collaboration and proper communication is essential in the production of a concept. You are positioning yourself for profitable results when you give your team a chance to brainstorm, share ideas, take notes, and learn from each other. This is where SaaS can help a business owner.

Collaboration Software

Slack

Slack has become increasingly popular over the years. With 8 million daily users, it is the most popular of all the collaboration softwares. Slack gives team members the opportunity to get together, virtually, to work with other software platforms. It allows multiple app integration and file sharing.

Facebook Workplace

The Facebook workplace was designed to integrate social media in the workplace– as a means of collaborating, communicating, and organizing. It allows the integration of tools such as DropBox.

Introduced in 2016, Facebook Workplace allows users to share posts, make and view updates, watch live video broadcasts, and discuss projects. Facebook Workplace supports file sharing, screen sharing, mentions, and reactions. Users’ personal accounts are separate from workplace accounts.

RealtimeBoard

Only a few conventional brainstorming tools are better than the whiteboard. This virtual whiteboard is comprehensive and can boost the collaborative efforts online through many integrations like icons, templates, and Google Drive.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams launched a year ago and currently engages about 200,000 companies. The tool has monopolized itself as the game changer for large enterprises. It comes integrated with Office 365 applications and supports third-party integrations– essential features. Microsoft Teams makes it possible to exchange files and schedule meetings– all in a single chat console.

Microsoft has also added cloud recording which are equipped with time coding and automatic transcription.

File Sharing

There are many file sharing services out there, each carrying its own pros and cons. They are all unique, so the decision to purchase one should be based on the online ecosystem the company resides in. File sharing services allow team members to work on the same documents and track changes in real-time. Google, Microsoft, and Apple all have their cloud database– file sharing services incorporated with their collection of office applications.

SaaS Providers That Help With Production

Business owners need to ensure that their products or services are in the reach of customers. Have you considered for SaaS can help your business?

Project Management Software

A good project management software is a necessity if forecasting specialized or complex projects in your future. A systemized project management software solution will provide the aid needed to execute projects, efficiently.

The following apps and services will prove to be beneficial:

Wrike

Popular for its 3-panel dashboard, Wrike places all your information in a single view. Wrike is a standard project management software with integrated collaboration features.

Basecamp

When a project needs to be completed, basecamp keeps every collaborator up-to-date with the progress of the task. Basecamp is an efficient project management software that holds all communications, files, upcoming assignments, and timeline in a single place.

Appointment Scheduling Software

This software makes appointments and online bookings automatic and synchronizes them with calendar and devices. It will also notify and set reminders of essential engagements and schedules. Examples include:

SimpleBook

This software simplifies scheduling and booking, making it accessible across different devices to book appointments and set plans from anywhere.

Calendly

This online scheduler lets business’ decide the hours for attending to clients and allows clients to choose the time slot convenient for them. Calendly is versatile and can be used in many scenarios and for different professionals – consultants, freelancers, and other companies. Integrate the tool on a website or in apps like Salesforce, Zapier, and GoToMeeting.

Sales and Marketing Using SaaS

Find out what generates money and the SaaS category with the highest number of competition.

Accounting and Payroll

The ultimate aim of a business is to make money. Preparing plans, budgets, and forecasts, coupled with important processes like project management, accounting, billing, and invoicing, and tracking are all paramount to success as a business. Consider choosing a SaaS for finances and accounting to help track payments and monitoring late payments without much fuss.

Accounting software providers make finances automatic and manage business’ accounting activities. Ultimately, they improve the accuracy of accounting processes. A good example is FreshBooks.

FreshBooks

This software keeps a tab on bank accounts and credit cards and helps to account for every minor expense. The design is intuitive and straightforward, meaning one should get the hang of things without any accounting background. It will automatically handle processes and calculations and allow to conduct thorough reports and review financial patterns.

Infusionsoft

This is perhaps the oldest of all sales and marketing software solutions. Although Infusionsoft is useful for traditional marketing, it also works excellently for automated online marketing. It is a bit expensive for small businesses and has a steep learning curve.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

These applications help companies create a stable relationship with their customers, increase conversions, and boost revenues through customer data monitoring from different interaction channels such as phone calls, social interactions, and website visits. Business’ use this software to evaluate and handle customer information towards creating sales funnels, identifying marketing opportunities, and launching loyalty programs. The most significant advantage of CRM is that they help sort customers based on their prospects and focus on the most viable buyers.

There are many CRM software to choose from, and the choice should be guided by the business’ mode of operation and budget. A popular, inexpensive option is Pipedrive. Hubspot CRM is another free comprehensive tool one can use for managing relationships with the customers.

Email Marketing Software

Email software providers are increasingly implementing easy-to-use and automation features for email campaigns. Many providers have autoresponders that make it faster to reply customer’s messages based on their behavior. Popular and reliable service providers include MailChimp, Emma, and Campaign Monitor.

Sales Automation Software

These solutions help regulate tasks and procedures related to sales. It makes tracking sales faster and allowing goals to be met on time.

A good solution is HubSpot Sales which is a component of HubSpot suite that allows pipeline management, sales automation, and CRM.

SaaS Managing Operations

Operation entails having team members aligned with a strong focus while ensuring fiscal control. The following are software for operations:

HR Software

HR software can help manage the workforce. It simplifies human resource management including screening, recruitment, evaluation, hiring, on-boarding, training, and education. It also ensures adherence to HR and labor laws.

A good solution for small and medium businesses is Bamboo HR. It is designed to handle online human resource requires such as employee on-boarding, applicant tracking, benefits management, and reporting.

Moneypenny: If the desired level of productivity from the employees is not met, then consider Moneypenny. The software monitors member hours, connect time logs with travel expenses, and provide tools for team management to ensure control and vision.

Humanity: Scheduling employees can be difficult. Humanity allows employees to set availability and manage shifts among themselves. Within a glance, a business owner will be able to tell if every ground is covered—or not.

Time Tracking Software

This software aid efficient management and completion of complex and time-based projects. Use solution to create beneficial goals and deadlines based on the numbers put in the system. Also, link related projects and tasks to get an overview of the expected result and to ensure that a company’s focuses are aligned progressively. It allows planning ahead of situations and adjusting processes and resources to manage positive and negative situations as they occur.

An example of a great time clock software is Time Clock Wizard. Time Clock Wizard is a hybrid tracking software containing project management and social collaboration features to help accomplish tasks before deadlines. It is one of the most useful cloud solutions for small businesses, and it is incredibly easy to use.

Time Clock Wizard provides a detailed work structure for managing projects, tasks and conversations. It emphasizes projects, budgets, portfolios, resources, and jobs, and ensures proper handling of information and resources.

Important features to consider before choosing SaaS solutions

The following are aspects one should consider:

• Ease of Use – must be easy to use by anyone without necessarily having an IT background
• Accessibility – must be uninhibited, regardless of time, location, and devices
• Affordability – consider solutions that offer quality at budget-friendly prices
• Quick Deployment – the installation must be smooth and straightforward – ready to deploy in no time
• Flexibility and Scalability – must be able to accommodate a business as it expands and flexible enough to allow app integrations
• Customer Support – easy access to information (guides, documentation, webinars) and resolutions (chats, phone calls, emails)
• Security Features – detailed security measures on the platform to safeguard data, transactions, and other information

SaaS is available to provide businesses with the boost it needs to scale in today’s digital world. Regardless of the limited budgets available for small businesses, they can employ cloud platforms to secure professional support and the latest technology, ensuring that they have what it takes to simplify their business operations and increase their strong points.

Studies have shown that more small and medium enterprises are adopting cloud and SaaS technology because of the benefits they offer. The most substantial reasons for adopting SaaS – flexibility and affordability – are benefits that small businesses are enjoying that has helped them save more, cut costs, increase opportunities, and organize their company into a much stronger and viable entity that can withstand challenges.

The post SaaS for Business: What You Should Know appeared first on Time Clock Wizard.

Content marketing focuses on the reason people create content, the target audience, and how people can offer them benefits they will not get elsewhere. Content marketing is a comprehensive digital marketing strategy that employs the power of content to build an audience, create a relationship, attract attention, boost engagement, reduce costs, and increase the customer base.

Alternatively, the content strategy focuses more on the art of creating and managing valuable content. Unlike the last two, a content plan is more calculated. It highlights the details of how to plan to implement a strategy and which team member will be responsible. It is necessary to have a solid content marketing strategy before creating a content plan.

Consider digital content strategy as a game plan that utilizes the power of content.  This means the approach should cover essential topic areas, the material to be created, sharing method, and call to action.

Why Is a Digital Content Strategy Important?

Content marketing strategy is as important as having proper documentation. Having a well thought out strategy will make content marketing more effective and increase the effectiveness of social media channels. In turn, this will optimize results from spending on content marketing.

Components of a Good Content Marketing Strategy

Consider the digital content strategy as a definite identification of the customer’s needs and an in-depth plan of how content will help meet those needs.

Although there are no standard outlines for creating a content marketing strategy because they are formulated for a specific business, there are five crucial areas your strategy must cover.

1. The business goals for implementing content marketing: this includes the goals to have for content process, the value proposition of content, and information about the business model. It should also include potential drawbacks and opportunities that one may encounter during implementation of a plan.

2. Business propositions for adopting content marketing: highlighting content creation purposes, potential risks, and anticipated successes will help obtain a backing for strategy – and authorization to experiment and make errors before identifying the strategy that is suitable for the business.

3. An audience’s identity and content outline: mention the target audience for the content, what they need, and their expected content engagement routine. Also, outline the content delivery process for different stages of the buyer’s journey towards drawing them closer to their goal.

4. A channel plan: this should highlight all the platforms intended to use for publication, the requirements, procedures, and objectives for each one, and planning to streamline them into a synergistic brand conversation.

5. A brand story: sort content marketing based on the messages or information you want to pass, the uniqueness of words, and the results that would likely come from sharing the information with the audience.

Should Content Marketing Strategy Be Shared with Other Departments in the Company?

Whether the departments are directly involved in the content marketing process or not, it is beneficial to allow people in an organization to access your content marketing strategy.

In large organizations, it could keep siloed teams updated on project details, reduce extraneous efforts, give everyone direction towards meeting similar content goals. This practice can be beneficial for small or new businesses, content teams, and companies outsourcing all or part of their content creation and distribution strategy.

Specific stakeholders in the company only require executive summaries of strategy. The reports submitted depend on the effect content marketing strategy has on their roles, operations, and goals.

The question one should ask is how the concept of content marketing can help him or her gain the interest of an organization. What are people attracted to? This will act as a guide when deciding which aspects of strategy to share with the teams.

Does Content Marketing Generate Results?

Yes. It is not necessary to break the bank. Reports have shown that most consumers prefer to read about a business through an article over other means of advertisement.

How Frequently Should I Modify the Digital Content Strategy?

Regardless of how far a business grows, there are aspects of strategy that should remain constant. For example: a business’ purpose and goals. These are two important points to take note of. Other categories of content marketing strategy need to be evaluated and updated regularly. To avoid straying away from direction, check the initial strategy, primary topics, work procedures annually or as frequently as necessary.

The Benefits of Content Marketing

We’ve discussed enough about content marketing. However, there still may be reservations concerning the long-term benefits– or that the process might be too complicated. The truth is that content marketing is one of the most versatile, practical, and valuable marketing strategies in recent times. Below are the benefits of adopting digital content strategy:

1. Boost Visibility in Search Engines

Google indexes every new post added to a blog or website. Although, having many pages does not mean one will get more organic traffic, having valuable, high-quality content can boost one’s chance of ranking high for relevant search queries. If focusing on long-tail keywords and high traffic topics that customers are searching for, it will be easier to rank high for those topics on search engine result pages (SERPs).

2. More Content

This is a glaring factor– dedicating time for content marketing means a website will have more content. This means better customer engagement since customers will have reasons to stick around. It will also give them the chance to get better acquainted with a brand and build trust. This will have exponential effects on conversion rates. Great content keeps users on a site; bad, boring content bounces them off.

3. More Referral Traffic

This has to do with the guest posting aspect of content strategy. Guest posting entails contributing content to other websites as a guest. With this, people will get a chance to create backlinks to a website. Guest posting for high traffic sites with high domain authority can get a business owner thousands of visitors to his or her website.

4. Higher Domain Authority

Creating much high-quality content gives users the opinion that the business owner is an expert in the field, and therefore increases the relevance, authority, and trust of his or her website. If that particular content has many inbound links from relevant or credible sources, a site’s domain authority will get a significant boost. High domain authority translates directly to high search rankings, which means creating more quality content, directly increasing organic search visibility to all sections of a website.

5. More Social Traffic and Followers

Publish content on various social media platforms to increase visibility. Expose material to more users and those users who read will share that content with their network of friends and followers– ultimately increasing network. With time, a brand’s followers will increase on social media which will generate more traffic to a website.

6. Better Brand Reputation

Content creates an impression of a brand on people’s mind. If they read more of insightful, beneficial, or enlightening content, they will respect the brand. Also, if content appears on different sources externally and they continue to see it on their social newsfeed, they will think of you as a reliable, established leader in the business.

7. Improved Potential for Conversion

The primary aim of content is to create better user engagement, inform, and add value to readers. Once that is accomplished, use other changes to present products and services to them. If correctly executed, the rate of conversion will improve. The key to this is discretion, as one should not directly convert content to advert. Content marketing simply allows a business owner to give his or her users the information they want while hoping that they would pay attention to a brand or products.

8. Universal Value

There is no such thing as an unsuitable industry for content marketing. Basically, all businesses in any sector can utilize content marketing in their strategy. Even the traditional sectors like manufacturing can offer quality information on the latest developments in the industry or even break down the complexities of their trade to consumers.

9. Better Customer Relationships

Building a better brand reputation helps to increase the audience size and awareness, and having good content can improve the relationship with customers. If utilizing the personal brands for content writing and sharing, customers will find it easier to build a close relationship with a business. Once they start depending on you as their primary source of information, you can be sure you have their loyalty.

10. Reduced Marketing Costs

Time is the main investment necessary for content marketing goals. In the first few months of a content marketing strategy, you may not get significant results but with a few years of practice, the returns on an initial investment could multiply.

Content Marketing is beneficial for every business – a cost-effective way to gain traffic, build brand reputation and reduce the cost of marketing and customer acquisition. The earlier a business starts investing in content marketing strategy, the more beneficial. The exciting fact about content marketing is that it is less expensive and the results are consistent. This is what the audience is interested in – they are continuously looking for answers.

There may be massive competition in an industry, but everyone is given a chance to compete. Be consistent with quality and make a website a more preferred destination for information. Whether you are seeking higher rankings or better conversion rate, content marketing should definitely be in your marketing strategy.

The post The Importance Of A Solid Content Marketing Strategy appeared first on Time Clock Wizard.

Have you been deliberating over the idea of outsourcing some of your company’s tasks? You may have arrived at this idea for a few reasons. As a business owner, you may be trying to cut costs in specific departments of the company or reduce the workload of your team. In most cases, trying to take on more projects at a higher frequency than your current workforce can handle, is definitely a risky move.

As with any major business decision, it is essential to evaluate the outsourcing pros and cons before moving forward. The truth is that you don’t have to tackle every area of the business when you can carefully outsource specific jobs to contractors, freelancers, or outside companies.

There are valid points for holding back on outsourcing – you may think it is cost-effective for the project to be completed in house, especially if the company is just starting out. This works for administrative roles and bookkeeping. However, unless your company employs experts in every field, there are highly skilled freelancers, who can help you execute projects and tasks in ways that save you effort, time, and money.

As with every decision, outsourcing has its pros and cons. The following are points to note before considering outsourcing as an one-time or ongoing option for a business.

Outsourcing Benefits

1. A Larger Talent Pool

Hiring employees only provides a business owner with access to a limited pool of local skills. This limitation sometimes means you have to settle for what you have. Outsourcing gives you the chance to reach talents all around the world. If you are looking for a particular level of expertise, it is logical to extend your reach among variety.

2. Don’t Commit To More Full Time Employees

Choosing to outsource allows a business owner to pay the vendor as a contractor, rather than hire more full-time employees to complete what may be a seasonal task. The pay-per-project concept ultimately saves the business from wasted spend on training, on-boarding, and payroll on employees that are only needed for a small task.

3. Save Money

Many companies have their reasons for outsourcing and cutting costs is the most common. While a business owner should never compromise quality for price, outsourcing is a cost-effective way to get the job done. Using outsourcing platforms or global talent pools, it is easy to find the suitable talent at a suitable budget for you.

According to an article in the New York Times, “control capital costs,” was the primary reason for businesses to consider outsourcing. Its basic business economics. Contractors reduce recruitment and business overhead costs. Not to mention – the flexibility outsourcing gives the business owner, in changing the size of the workforce according to incoming business.

4. Less Stress Behind Hiring and Firing

Even if done by the book with grace, firing an in-house employee an be a difficult decision and sometimes can be a human resources nightmare. Dealing with contractors can prove to be much easier. If you’re unhappy with the contractors work, move on to the next!

5. Access to Expertise

Instead of trying to multitask, outsourcing allows business owners to find highly skilled workers in very specific fields. These experts can help get the job done faster, and more thoroughly and don’t need to cost you a years salary.

6. The Time Zone Advantage

When you have a workforce located in another time zone, they can execute projects when your employees have retired for the night. The best part is that you will find the results waiting for you when you wake up.

Cons of Outsourcing

Don’t get too excited – you might be ready to outsource all your business needs after reading through that list. Outsourcing can come with its associated risks. For more business owners, it comes down to – what price point outweighs the potential risks of outsourcing?

1. No Room For Micro-Managing

For business owners that need to closely manage employees, outsourcing may not be the best option. Part of the benefits of outsourcing is relinquishing the ability to micromanage the work being done.

2. Communication Barriers

Outsourcing can refer to hiring any employee on a contractor basis for any type of work. This includes domestically located freelancers or highly skilled freelancers from abroad. It is possible to find quality work for extremely low costs in other countries. Along with this route comes communication barriers. Sure, most foreign freelancers speak English to some extent. Is their English level sophisticated enough to understand your project requirements? Are they going to be able to produce a product geared towards your consumer?

For some businesses, their outsourcing needs can be met overseas with minimal communication or direction. While this is the ideal situation, it is not often the reality of outsourcing work. Efficient communication techniques like screen sharing apps or Skype can help get the job done, but language barriers can prove to be catastrophic to the project timeline.

3. Quality Control

Outsourcing is only useful when it generates the expected results. What if the quality does not match up to your expectations? While this does not mean one should hold back, it means he or she should communicate the qualities expected before commencing the project.

4. Effect on Company Culture

It is important to consider how outsourcing jobs can effect company culture. Are you unsettling existing full-time employees about their job security? Is their position going to be outsourced next?

While it may seem like a minor setback, having a progressive work culture can increase productivity. Be sure to consider the following:

• Budgeting may become more difficult for directors.
• Employees may feel upset or threatened if their current position is up for outsourcing.
• The company’s flow of work becomes complicated.

5. Misaligned Work Ethics and Standard

There are chances that the outsourced workforce would have different work ethics and professional standards. Their efficiency and dedication to the project may have to be question because freelancers normally have multiple clients and therefore prioritize tasks differently. For some projects, a business owner may realize that outsourced projects take more time than doing it in-house.

6. Security Risks

If running a data-sensitive company, security may become a problem if the information is exposed to a third party, especially when there is a risk of misuse of confidential data. It is harder to secure data when it is out of your hands.

It is not always easy to protect rights to intellectual properties and taking legal action upon a confidentiality violation is expensive and not always possible, especially if the contractor is in a different country.

7. Possible Conflicts of Interest

If the contractors a business is using are offering similar services to their competitors, more often than not, there is a possibility for conflict of interest. Can the vendor provide services completely unbiased of customers? Will it effect your business with the vendor? Answering these questions thoroughly can help you consider if you want to outsource jobs or keep it all in house.

Measuring Success

It is important to not only consider outsourcing both pros and cons, but to have a consistent manner in which you measure success. To accurately measure if outsourcing certain jobs is helping your business or hurting it, you must consider the time and money invested into the project. Do you have a positive return on investment (ROI)? With both hours poured into the project on your part and money spent to pay the freelancer accounted for, was the profit from the project worth the initial investment?

Time, as a business owner, is an asset. The time spent on executing tasks that can be outsourced is the time that could be spent on completing or meeting business goals. This understanding will provide insights into how to measure a company’s performance and the effects of outsourcing. The bottom line is: time is valuable.

Reasons to Outsource

As a business grows and workload increases , it is vital to decide where one wants to direct his or her energy. The role of a owner or director is to gain foresight and dedicate time to what projects would make the most significant impacts. A survey by Deloitte in 2016 showed that most companies outsource to save money and focus on essential business goals.

Noting this, you should be able to tell that it is necessary once you start noticing any of the following reasons for outsourcing:

• Tasks are becoming arduous: when minor tasks are beginning to take more time than usual, it is time to consider outsourcing. To build your business successfully, you need to make processes and operations more efficient and more comfortable.
• Responsibilities are taking attention away from high priority tasks: It is easy to notice this. If the work isn’t necessary for day to day operations, you should think about outsourcing it.
• There is a simpler and better way to do it: there is a solution technology provides for nearly everything. If adopting a software or tech resource will reduce the weight of business procedures, then you should consider that.

Outsourcing Services That Make Sense

Outsourced areas depend on the nature of the company and their needs, but the main three are marketing, business operations, and finance.

• Business operations: for administrative tasks, hiring a virtual assistant is one investment every business owner should consider. Unlike other roles, admin work can be managed remotely. Other business operations you can outsource are recruitment, cleaning, and time management
• Marketing: many companies already outsource their branding and design. For social media marketing, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and other digital marketing needs, it is always advisable to have a professional company manage your internet campaigns and awareness. You will find that even some marketing agencies outsource their work with a small internal team in one location.
• Customer support and service: Many startups prefer to outsource customer service and support, especially to experts in another time zone. This allows them to provide 24/7 service to their customers.

Before You Outsource:

• The best solution is more important than the best price
• Share risk
• Make sure your professional goals are aligned
• Ensure clear communication from the start
• Use detailed and updated legal contracts
• Create proper documentation to clearly state your requirements and expectations

Taking the bold step may seem scary at first, but once a business owner takes the plunge, he or she may come to find the outstanding benefits to outsourcing for the business. Understand the facts and make an informed decision to better your business.

The post Outsourcing Pros And Cons: Should You Do It? appeared first on Time Clock Wizard.

Simply put, business process automation is the systemization of complex business operations using technology. Automation makes tasks more manageable, especially if they would be seemingly complicated for humans. A proper application of business process automation solutions can help companies manage data, organize processes, supervise operations in real-time, and manage available resources. The ultimate goal of automation tools is to increase productivity and process stability.

The truth? We have all spent cherished time on routine business tasks that we would avoid if we could. It could be manual data input at the day’s end or sorting through a pile of documents and arranging them to keep related information in one place. We’ve all done the boring stuff.

Ease The Burden: Business Process Automation Solutions

1. Document Reviews

Good workflow software can generate, edit, and appraise documents produced regularly by a business, including contracts. It typically notes the tone, language, and formats the text accordingly. It can also adjust reports to be geographically accurate.

Approving the data at any point of the operation is possible. This means that qualified team members can make concurrent modifications and monitor changes immediately without requiring manual notice and without prolonging on deadlines or possible publishing of unfinished document.

2. Loan Approvals

Manual processes leave paper trails and increase time spent before loan approvals. The chance of making a mistake during the transfer of confidential data is high.

Process automation can simplify loan approval by removing the stress from submission, review, and processing. Automated workflow associates all correlating databases to prevent employees from having to input or evaluate information manually. This reduces the time spent collating data from customers living in different locations.

3. SMS Notifications

Emails are the conventional means of communication for many business operations, SMS click rates is higher than email click rates. This means that people tend to check and read their text messages faster than they read emails.

This improves the response rate and lessens the time taken to perform a task. Project managers can use process automation to incorporate SMS alerts into a business operation and increase the convenience and ease of working together with the team.

Business owners can go further by combining alerts from different means of communication (phone, SMS, email) to reduce the time employees spend on checking messages and notifications and allow them to spend that time executing the project.

4. Risk Mitigation

Process automation can decrease the number of forms necessary to work on manually and help ensure that the input data conforms to required regulations within the limits of the contract and the sector.

It is also possible to structure the workflow to notify the workforce of problems upon data input. Business owners can also create self-service notifications for each employee to find errors promptly to help them comply with the regulations before form submission.

Here are different usage scenarios for automation:

1. In the financial sector, automation decreases fraud rate by producing complete audit trails for perusal and appraisal.
2. In the machinery sector, automation can be designed to help employees conform to industry regulations, such as medical equipment and airplane assessments.

5. Media Submissions

Many production crews often have to upload submissions such as media plans or content proposals manually. Afterward, officials will examine the proposals and re-upload the files to a database.

These manual procedures waste valuable time, are unpleasant prone to errors. It also makes it impossible for the two parties to monitor submissions in multistage approval procedures. Automation saves this information and dispatches it to the right people at the appropriate stage, ensuring a more effective process flow.

6. Feedback Portals

Companies conduct surveys to get quality, measurable data. The exciting part is that automated surveys appear at the right time, using the customer’s activity at that particular time. Polls can also be administered to routinely request feedbacks at a set time – probably two or three months after the customer’s initial purchase. Besides, the automated process can forward the results of the survey to the appropriate people in the enterprise and store them automatically in the general database.

There is no additional configuration or manual scheduling required. Just run the initial set up and let it do its job.

7. Instant Customer Demos

Demos are effective methods for explaining the importance of a business solution to potential customers. Businesses that require this demo usually have their IT department provide such customized demo requests for customers. Workflow automation can help reduce the time and resources by preparing a demo template within a short period.

This template enables employees to handle the client’s data with minimal effort. Moreover, it helps to ensure the proper protection of sensitive customer information.

8. Product Renewals

For many businesses, the value of customer retention is the same as customer acquisition and sometimes more. Missing a sales or upsell chance when a customer refuses to renew their subscription or update their account can be terrific. Rather than waste time on trying to get them to renew, it is better to ensure they never forget to do it in the first place.

The sales department should not have to send notifications manually to customers when their product or service subscription is about to expire.

When a customer buys a product or makes a subscription, automation connects the purchase details to the primary database and saves their data. Using the product or service information, it will email them a notification when their subscription date is near and apprises the database accordingly. This automation averts the expiry of subscriptions and ensures a sales team never loses vital sales chances.

Automation provides insight into the reason customers refused to renew their product license or subscription, allowing business owners to discover and solve issues against future occurrences.

9. Employee Status Changes

Whenever an employee status changes, most HR departments have to make the updates manually. For instance, if a director awards an employee a promotion, the HR department must be notified of a salary raise, get authorization from the financial department, scan files and save them in the right place. The process is cumbersome and slow with high possibilities of human error.

With business process automation, the director or supervisor only has to complete a form concerning the changes. The automation performs the task of obtaining approvals, product and dispatch the correct additional documents and file them correctly. The process is seamless and accurate, reducing possible human errors.

10. Stacking Multiple Processes

With automation, business owners can connect different business applications, content storages, or cloud services. By streamlining various applications, a team member (both on-site and off-site) will be able to collaborate effectively and simplifying work processes regardless of location.

Softwares to Begin Business Process Automation

Where can you start to look for outlets to begin business process automation according to what task they need to accomplish? Find a helpful compilation of programs ranging from employee time tracking softwares to project management apps to help you begin better business process automation.

1. Team Communication

Communication is essential for productivity, collaborations, and better work efficiency. For team communication and collaboration our choice tools is:

Slack

Slack is excellent for team collaboration through instant messaging. Team members can make phone calls and share files. The software allows business owners to set up different channels for specific topics, teams, or projects. It is also possible to integrate other automation tools on slack.

Other communication tools include Flowdock and HipChat.

2. Project Management

Projects are the backbone of any business and are consequently the giving the utmost attention. It is essential to prioritize project management and monitor the progress until completion. Studies have shown that 57% of projects flop because of inefficient communications. Project management tools make it possible to collaborate productively and keep track of projects using milestones.

Our choice for project management automation software:

Trello

This is one of the most common project management software out there. It has customizable boards and aids in categorizing tasks with cards regarding priority, team members, and project deadlines. It also supports pictures, comments, and checklists.

Other tools include Asana and Basecamp.

3. HR Management

HR experts use automation software for importing, sorting, and storing digital files, archive records, and collecting data. This makes their job easier and faster. Our choice for HR management tool:

BambooHR

BambooHR is currently and arguably the best HR management automation software. It is an excellent tool for small and medium enterprises and has features such as centralized employee database, quick reminders, controlled access, accurate reporting, and simplified recruitment. The software gives access to employee data at any time or location.

Other HR management tools include Namely and Zenefits.

4. Time Tracking Software

The use of employee time tracking software can help monitor employee work hours for payroll, billing, or operations. They help keep track of the time employees spends on specific tasks. An excellent example of such tools is the TimeClockWizard.

5. Marketing and Social Media

Staying active on social media platforms is not as easy as people think. Business owners often have to do researches, create and schedule posts, reply comments and also continually stay updated on the latest trends and tactics. Automation tools can help deal with this hassle.

Our selection for social media marketing:

Buffer

Buffer is a popular marketing tool that helps marketers schedule posts, monitor post analytics and manage every social media accounts from one place.

MailChimp

For email marketing campaigns, business owners can automate the process using MailChimp. This tool helps to generate the concise email campaign and dispatch it to hundreds of recipients at once.

Hootsuite is another helpful tool for social media.

6. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

It is vital to always pay attention to customers. Automating customer interaction and sales is possible. The tools available can help track business deals and complete transactions.

Our selections of customer relationship management software include:

Pipedrive

Pipedrive acts as a company’s sales manager. The automation tool is incredibly versatile and helps to monitor sales progress and manage leads. Pipedrive can help ensure an effective sales strategy, better customer relations, and better sales management.

Other tools include Zoho and Fieldbook.

Business process automation improves efficiency and helps business owners and their team save countless work hours, thousands of dollars, and frustration. Automation can help you organize and manage those minor operations that often go unnoticed during the digital transformation process.

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