Everything You Need to Know About Outsourcing for Your Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |outsourcing|Everything You Need to Know About Outsourcing for Your BusinessOnly large corporations can actually afford to hire all their needs in-house and have that be the most cost effective solution. Everyone else needs to work together. Knowing who to work with, or even that you need to work with someone to start with, is what trips many new and established businesses up.

Outsourcing can and should be your friend, but if you find the wrong partner you could end up price-gouged at every turn. That is not the only option. Outsourcing is smart for small and medium-sized businesses so that they can enjoy top of the line services when and if they need it. So, if you are new or feel like you are drowning, follow this guide:

The Benefits of Outsourcing

It is impossible to hire everyone you need when you first start out. Many people today only have themselves, which means they’re not just the boss or the expert, they’re the marketer, the accountant, the salesperson, the receptionist and any other role that comes your way.

Frankly, you can’t do it all. Thankfully, you don’t have to.

By outsourcing jobs you can rely on experts at a fraction of the cost and only when you need it. Hire a web designer to set up your website and then learn how to use the CMS to update the blog or anything else. Hire an accountant during tax season and use a software for the rest of the year.

What to Look for When Outsourcing

When outsourcing you need to make sure that one, the person or team you are going to are actually qualified and two, that they are affordable. When you are just starting out it is a good idea to look for options that offer a flat-fee rate, so that you can budget in their services without worrying about hidden costs.

The New Business Guide: What to Outsource

1. IT Services

One outsourced service you will absolutely want to have on call are IT services. IT specialists are expensive – and for good reason. They know what they’re doing and can help provide support and logistics for the behind-the-scenes aspects of your company. Thankfully there are companies like IT Connect that offer managed IT services at a flat-fee rate.

You need these services to help keep your systems up and running, troubleshoot problems, help you and your team with daily questions, and even to help prevent a hacking attempt. Ransomware in particular is deadly to a business – and it doesn’t matter what the size is. Managed IT services can help you strengthen your defenses and provide the support that makes you a difficult target for hackers.

2. Tax and Accounting Services

There is business accounting software available that can help you keep your books in order, but tax laws are complex. Hiring an accountant to go through your books and get you the best tax rebates is smart and will ensure your business stays legal.

You will need to outsource more as you grow. HR services, marketing services, and so many more will need to be hired as you grow. Outsourcing when you cannot afford the full wage of a specialist in-house is the smartest move you can make, but be sure of who you hire before you commit.

Employee Onboarding Trends That Every Employer Should Know In 2020

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Onboarding Trends|Employee Onboarding Trends That Every Employer Should Know In 2020Human resources are undoubtedly the most vital resource for any organization. A talented and dedicated team can drive success for your business, so it definitely makes sense to go the extra mile with your recruitment process.

Having a good onboarding strategy is equally significant because it ensures retention of the resources you choose with a great deal of hard work. While having a robust onboarding process is the best way to get started, you need to follow the latest industry trends to deliver outstanding experiences to the new hires. Here are the employee onboarding trends that every employer should implement in 2020.

Trend #1: Preboarding

A lot goes on for the potential employee after accepting the job offer. There is stress and anxiety of course, in addition to the fact that they may have some competing job offers. These could lead to the new employees changing their minds and not showing up. No wonder, preboarding is emerging as a key trend in the recruitment industry. The objective of this process is to keep the potential employee engaged for the period between the date of offer acceptance and the first day of work. It involves connecting and reconnecting with the hires during this period so that they feel engaged and excited to be a part of your organization.

Trend #2: Personalization

Another onboarding trend that is making it big for recruiters is personalization. A personalized onboarding experience makes new hires feel connected and builds a comfort level right from the start. Though creating such experiences can take some effort, it pays off in the form of accelerated employee productivity right after joining.

Bringing personalization in onboarding workflows involves consideration of factors such as role, location and seniority of the recruits and designing the process accordingly. You can deliver specialized onboarding material and training sessions that are tailored to the needs and expectations of the recruits.

Trend #3: Automation

Onboarding is a humongous task for HR managers as the process has multiple steps and processes involved. The stress of managing them seamlessly is massive and they can end up wasting their precious time as well. Now is the time to look for an HR platform with onboarding features to automate the entire process. Though you will have to make this one time investment, it can translate into extensive savings in the long run. Automation is one trend that no organization should miss on, regardless of its size and scale.

Trend #4: Socialization

The human aspect is undeniably the most important part of onboarding. Positive social relationships at work should be encouraged as they drive employee engagement and the likelihood of staying with the employer. New hires, in particular, are likely to feel more comfortable in the new environment if they make friends with their colleagues.

It becomes important to embed socialization in the onboarding process and you should definitely embrace this trend for 2020 and beyond. The buddy system is one of the approaches you can incorporate within the program to encourage socialization.

Trend #5: Mentorship

New employees often struggle with finding someone they can turn to for good advice on key matters such as company culture, work expectations and initial stress. Mentorship is a trend that most of the organizations have adopted today to resolve this challenge for the new hires. A mentor is essentially a person in a senior position who can guide and advise the new employee to make their initial journey a smooth one. Since this person knows the company inside out, he or she is probably able to help the recruit to blend within the setup and culture of the organization.

Trend #6: Feedback

Businesses often go a long way with employee satisfaction surveys to get feedback on the existing system and find ways to improve it. In the recent time, feedback has become a significant part of the onboarding process as well. After all, you would want to know how satisfied the new employees are with the program and what is their likelihood of staying with the company and recommending it to others as well. Just building a new employee feedback system will not help; you need to understand the issues and address the gaps to improve the system as a whole.

These innovative trends have huge potential when it comes to improving your onboarding process. Not implementing them can put you behind in the race and you may even lose the best talent out there. So you must make all the efforts to align your program according to these trends.

Marketing First, Technology Second

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Marketing First, Technology SecondWhenever someone asks me to define marketing, I tell them that a marketer’s primary responsibility is to differentiate because when two competing products are perceived as being the same, consumers are forced to make their choice based on price.

Tech-First Paradigm

A major downside of living in a tech-centric society like ours is that many of us now use a technology-first lens to view the world around us. Too often, product managers are taking the easier route of emphasizing technical features and benefits instead of crafting a compelling brand positioning strategy that identifies and fills a perceived gap in the minds of consumers.

Let’s face it; technical superiority is usually short-lived. Just think about all the mobile phones you have personally owned. If you compare leading mobile phone brands based on their actual technical specifications, you’ll find that from a speed, memory, and graphics perspective, many brands are incredibly similar. Yet, each of us has specific brand preferences. I have personally witnessed long lines of people waiting for hours in bad weather just for a chance to purchase the newest iPhone.

No Brand Strategy

Depending on your source, somewhere between 75% and 90% of all startups will fail. When founders are asked why their startups have failed, the top three reasons given are 1) a lack of focus, 2) too much competition, and 3) insufficient demand. If you think about it, each of these reasons is a symptom of a poorly formed marketing strategy. A lack of focus equates to a lack of positioning. Too much competition comes from not enough differentiation, and insufficient demand probably means your brand lacks a reason for being.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Marketing First, Technology SecondWhy is Brand Strategy Important?

The world’s most successful brands have well-defined brand strategies that include a differentiated positioning and reason for being. The gold standard example of brand positioning is when Apple created its Think Different campaign. That’s when Apple repositioned itself as the go-to computer brand for those who want to be creative. From that moment on, every Apple touchpoint (tech, software, and features) was intentionally designed to help people be more creative.

Not an Afterthought

As a consultant, I’m often asked to help brands create a brand strategy after they have already developed a product. Unfortunately, this is a suboptimal approach. Positioning a brand after launching a product, is like pouring the foundation for a building after the building is built.

Brand Positioning

The essence of brand strategy is positioning. Select a positioning that gives your consumers a clear choice versus the competition. An effective brand positioning is crafted and honed until it occupies a differentiated and meaningful space in the minds of consumers – a space that cannot be easily replicated by the competition. Differentiate on attributes that consumers care about and solutions that consumers would prioritize when choosing between brands. Remember, just being different is never enough.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Marketing First, Technology SecondFind your Own Space

A consumer’s mind is like a big city with lots of individual neighborhoods. Neighborhoods are known for offering different things – think Chinatown, Little Italy, the suburbs, uptown, and downtown. Just like selecting a place to build a physical structure, it all comes down to location, location , location. When picking a space in your customer’s mind, you have to consider who your neighbors will be and what the neighborhood trends are. Is there a direct competitor next door? Is the neighborhood popular? Or, is the neighborhood in decline?

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Marketing First, Technology SecondFocus

Distill your brand positioning down to a battle cry. Concise brand messaging is easy to share and remember. These slogans help keep your positioning top of mind while providing a true north for selecting on-strategy activities and building brand associations.

For example, LinkedIn’s “Connect to Opportunity” does an effective job of explaining what the brand stands for and its reason for being

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Marketing First, Technology SecondTOMS’ “One for One” slogan communicates the company’s focus on social caring and the emotional benefits of the brand. As a result, its “One for One” campaign is one of the all-time most popular cause marketing campaigns.

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Marketing First, Technology SecondAmazon’s Jeff Bezos has publicly referred to the company’s mission statement as the guiding force behind his leadership decisions many times throughout the company’s history. Since it began in 1994, Amazon has had a clear focus and a solitary reason for being. Amazon is “a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.”

Stand Out

Humans, by nature, are creatures of habit. To get people to stop what they are doing and consider something new, you need to do something different. Just listing features and benefits is not going to cut it.

We live in a hyper-competitive world where consumers and stakeholders are overwhelmed with stimulus and competing messages. The average American reads roughly 100 text messages a day and is exposed to over 20,000 advertisements a week. As Sir Richard Branson famously said, “If you want to stand out from the crowd, give people a reason not to forget you.” So, first, change your paradigm and find your unique reason for being. Then, use your tech to bring that unique proposition to life.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Luis PedrozaLuis Pedroza is a global brand builder and author of Lean Brands: Catch Customers, Drive Growth, and Stand Out in All Markets. He has held leadership positions with iconic global brands and has worked in many international markets. For more information visit www.luispedrozaauthor.com.

How to Run a Social Media Campaign: A Guide for Beginners

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |how to run a social media campaign |How to Run a Social Media Campaign: A Guide for BeginnersEvery year, people continue to spend more time on social media. In 2019, the average person spent 2 hours and 23 minutes on social media every day.

If you’re selling any type of product or service, you need to know how to run a social media campaign if you want to get your brand in front of your customers.

Keep reading to learn more about building a social media plan that will help you reach a wider audience.

1. Create Goals for Your Campaign

Before you can run a social media campaign, you need to decide what your goals are for it. Do you want to sell a new product, increase brand awareness, or grow your email list?

Whatever the purpose is of your social media campaign, be sure to create goals that are specific, measureable, and achievable.

2. Select Platforms

The second step is to decide which social media platforms you’re going to use to reach your audience. This will determine how you create the content or ads since you want to optimize them for each platform.

Unless you have a huge marketing team in place, you’ll want to pick just two or three platforms for your campaign. This allows you to only focus on the platforms that will help you reach your goals.

StrategyDriven's Social Media Publication Timing Whitepaper


3. Check or Make a Social Media Style Guide

If you don’t already have one, now is the time to create a social media style guide. Make sure everything from your logo to your image sizes are well-defined for each platform you’re using.

4. Plan Your Content

Now it’s time to plan your content. Think about what you want to share to guide users down the sales funnel or to reach your goals for the campaign. Then, come up with a schedule of content that will help you accomplish that.

5. Set Your Budget

Possibly the easiest part of the planning process is to determine how much you’re willing to spend on your social media campaign. If you’re running ads, you can set a price per day or for the entire campaign.

6. Prepare Your Social Media Tools

You don’t want to end up scrounging around for tools at the last second once you’ve launched your campaign. For that reason, decide now what tools you’ll use for every part of the campaign process.

This could include:

  • A logo maker
  • Graphic design programs
  • Auto-scheduling software
  • Email list builder

Be sure to keep everyone on the same page, especially if you have more than one person creating visual content.

7. Get to Work!

All that’s left now is to start working on your social media campaign! You put in the preparation work, so now you just have to follow through with your plan and start creating and posting content.

Learn More About How to Run a Social Media Campaign

Now you know how to run a social media campaign. As you can see, it takes a great deal of preparation but is necessary if you want to get the best return on your investment.

To learn more about social media marketing and how to accelerate growth in your business, keep reading our blog. It’s filled with information you can use to make every marketing campaign more successful.

How Much Does It Cost to Build a Website? A Guide on Web Design Prices

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |web design prices |How Much Does it Cost to Build a Website? A Guide on Web Design PricesDespite the fact that we’re all living in a digital world these days, there are still a lot of small businesses out there operating without a website.

In fact, studies have shown that about 50% of small businesses don’t have a website set up at the moment. This is likely having an impact on many of these businesses’ bottom lines by affecting their ability to generate income month in and month out.

One of the reasons why some business owners choose not to invest in a website for their company is because of their perceived web design prices. They’re often under the impression that a website is going to cost too much money to create.

But this couldn’t be further from the truth. If you own a small business, you can get a website up and running without breaking the bank.

Before you take this leap, though, find out some of the factors that will impact how much a website will cost you. It’ll allow you to budget money wisely for creating a website.

Here are some of the things that can lead to web design prices going up or down.

What Is Your Website’s Domain Name Going to Be?

Before you can begin building a website for your business, you’re going to need to invest in a domain name for it. More often than not, your domain name is going to be your business name with “.com” on the end of it.

If this domain name is readily available, it shouldn’t cost you much money at all to snatch it up for your website. But there is a chance that someone might already own the rights to the domain name that you want.

If this turns out to be the case, you can:

  • Come up with a different domain name other than the one that you had in mind
  • Consider paying whoever owns the domain name that you want for the rights to it

Often times, business owners will go with the first option to avoid spending a small fortune on a domain name. But if you really want a domain name, you can make whoever owns it an offer.
Doing this will cost you more than you anticipated to spend. But it’ll be well worth it if you think that the domain name is going to help drive more traffic to your site.

Who Is Going to Host Your Website?

Buying the domain name that you want for your website is going to be the first expense you incur when creating a site for your business. Finding a website hosting service is going to be the expense that comes right behind it.

You’ll need a reliable website hosting service on your side to help you with all your hosting needs when you’re getting a site off the ground. They should have a great reputation for helping host small business sites.

You might have to pay a little extra to work with one of the best website hosting services in the business. But it’ll be worth it once you see the services that they’re able to extend to you while you’re in the process of setting your site up and updating it over time.

Is Your Website Going to Get a Custom Look?

Once you have a domain name for your website and a website hosting service on your side, it’ll be time to get down to business. You’ll be ready to start putting together plans for your actual site.

To do this, you’ll have the option of either:

  • Using a website template to create your site
  • Hiring a web designer to create a custom site from scratch

The first option is hands down, the better option for anyone on a tight budget. You’ll keep your web design prices low by going with a website template.

But the second one is great for those businesses that want to make their websites stand out. You can hire a website development company to bring each and every idea that you have for your site to life.

Who Is Going to Create Your Website?

If you decide that you’re going to hire a website development company to work on a custom site for you, the specific company you hire will affect your web design prices.

If you choose to hire a well-established company with a lot of web design experience, they’re going to charge you more than someone who just started designing websites last week. Consider a bunch of different options when looking for the right website development company.

The company that you bring on board to work on your website should have:

  • Plenty of experience in the website development industry
  • A long list of web design services
  • Lots of examples of sites they’ve developed in the past
  • Fair and affordable prices on the services they offer

It’s not a bad idea to call a handful of website development companies to get quotes for their services. It’ll help you keep your web design prices as low as you can.

How Many Different Pages Are Going to Be on Your Website?

There are some websites out there that have little more than a homepage and maybe an “About Us” page and a “Contact” page. These basic sites are easy to design and won’t cost much money to create.

But many times, businesses need their websites to have more than just those pages. They also need product pages, service pages, blog pages, and more set up. They want to be able to jampack their sites with all the necessary information.

If your website is going to need more than a few pages on it, it’s going to send your web design prices soaring. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t still create those pages. But you should be mindful of the fact that it’s going to impact the final cost of your site.

Is Your Website Going to Have Any Special Features?

With almost 1.8 billion websites on the internet today, you’re going to want to find ways to make your site stand out. That might mean adding a bunch of special features to your site to make it unique.

Some businesses are incorporating things like video into the mix on their websites these days. They’re finding that they’re able to get more traction with customers this way.

Other businesses are adding things like chatbots to their sites so that customers can connect with them in a hurry without picking up the phone. This is making it easier for many businesses to form bonds with their customers.

You don’t have to invest in these kinds of special features. But it’s worth looking into some of them to see how they might improve your site, even if they cause a slight bump in your web design prices.

Will Your Website Need to Have a Store Included on It?

Are you going to sell products and/or services to your customers through your website? If that’s your plan, you’re going to need to create a store that can accept payments from them.

Doing this isn’t anywhere near as complicated as it used to be. You can have a web designer build you a special section on your site where people will be able to order products and services from you.

But this will often come at an additional cost, especially if your web development company has to beef up your site’s security so that you can start taking online orders. You’ll need to make room in your budget for this particular aspect of your site.

Who Is Going to Be in Charge of Updating Your Site?

Once you have your website up and running, updating it is going to be of the utmost importance. If you don’t take the time to update your site, it’s going to take a toll on your site’s search engine optimization and make it hard for people to find it.

If you’re even the least bit web savvy, you should be able to handle updating your site on your own. You can add new content to it every so often to show Google and the other search engines that you’re on top of maintaining it.
But if you don’t have the time, energy, or patience to update your site, that will be another additional cost you’ll have to factor in. You may need to enlist the services of a company that specializes in beefing up the SEO of websites.

Don’t Let Web Design Prices Stop You From Creating a Website

Now that you know some of the factors that affect web design prices, you might feel overwhelmed by the costs associated with setting up a site. Don’t be!

You can get a website started in no time with a small investment on your part. You can then add to it over time as you see fit to make the costs that come along with owning a website more manageable.

A website will help your company do better business from now on. By spending a little bit of money on your site, you can get a great return on your investment.

Learn how to use a website to your advantage by reading through the other articles on our blog.