Top Tips For Content Marketing

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Content Marketing|Top Tips For Content MarketingContent marketing is an essential part of any marketing strategy for any business, especially for those that operate online. Content marketing is the creation, publication, and distribution of online content, with the aim of reaching a hyper-focused audience and converting them into loyal customers. But how do you get content marketing right?

Set Clear Goals

One of the best marketing tips is to set clear goals. There are lots of options for making content, so choosing the right method can be overwhelming. With options from blog posts and Instagram posts to ebooks and podcasts, where should you start? How do you know which method is the best one?

Use analytics to make sure your content finds your audience. How does the content link back to your business? You need to direct those reading back to your business and your services. Make it clear who wrote the content and why you’re the expert in your field. You can also hire companies to do this for you. If your business needs specialist content, then hire a specialist, such as natural gas marketing, if that’s your field.

Understand The Buyer’s Journey

Your content marketing strategy must engage your reader at every stage of their buying journey. While content is mostly thought of as a way to attract new people to your company website, it can and should also convince a potential or existing customer to make a purchase. Good content keeps existing customers loyal as well as bringing in new ones.

Work out what could cause customers to not purchase and create content that addresses those concerns. For example, are customers seeing your product as too complicated to use? If this is the case, create some content from your sales team like a series of simple instructional videos or how-to blog posts to convince customers that your products are easy to use. If you have a large range of options in your products, this can help to simplify the decision of what to buy too.

Track Performance With Analytics

Your content needs to convert viewers into customers. Analytics is the best way to keep track of how this is going. Monitor the numbers closely to see what kind of content is working for you and what content isn’t. This can help you to see where you can improve your content to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

As well as traffic, look at your conversion rates. For example, if your blog only gets 500 readers, but your Instagram has 5000 followers, it might seem that Instagram is more worthwhile and successful for you. However, if the blog has a conversion rate of 7%, while Instagram only has 0.5%, this shows that your blog is doing a better job of converting people to sales, and shouldn’t be overlooked, despite the smaller audience. An engaged audience is more important than a big audience, as these are the ones who make purchases, spend money, and engage with your content.

Non-Paying Customers and How to Handle Them

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StrategyDriven Customer Relationship Management Article |Non-paying Customers|Non-Paying Customers and How to Handle ThemIncreasing sales is a top priority for most businesses but, if your customers aren’t paying, extra sales won’t equate to higher revenue. When your cash flow is disrupted due to missed or late payments, it can have a significant impact on your operations. For some businesses, irregular cash flow can cause operations to come to a standstill, which could be devastating to your firm.

To prevent this from happening, take a look at these four tips to handle non-paying customers:

Take a Deposit

When customers are required to pay a deposit upfront, you can ensure that you’ve received at least partial payment before undertaking any work. This may cover the cost of materials or labor, for example, which means you won’t actually make a loss if a subsequent payment is missed.

Additionally, insisting on a deposit also gives you an opportunity to see how efficiently the customer processes their payments. This gives you an insight into whether they’re to continue making regular payments on time and can help you to gauge your future business relationship.

Highlight Payment Terms

If you’re accepting a new customer, make sure that payment terms are clearly defined and agreed in advance. Instead of relying on verbal confirmation, always ensure that agreements are made in writing. Similarly, include detailed clauses regarding when and how payments should be made so that there’s no risk of miscommunication or confusion.
Making payment terms highly visible, such as using a different font or placing the text in bold, will help to draw the recipient’s attention to them and can help to ensure payments are made speedily.

Outsource Collections

Businesses can spend a disproportionate amount of time chasing missing or late payments, which can affect their efficiency and productivity. By outsourcing to a collection agency, however, you can focus on your core business activities instead of chasing customers. As well as freeing up more of your time, using a dedicated agency can have other advantages too.

When customers receive correspondence from a collection agency, they’re more likely to take the matter seriously. As a result, payments are made more quickly, and your cash flow is reinstated.

Automate Your Invoicing

If you don’t send invoices as soon as work is complete, payments will inevitably be delayed. Even if the customer pays within the agreed timeframe, a delayed invoice can affect your cash flow and lead to unnecessary financial difficulties for your firm.

Fortunately, this is relatively easy to rectify. By implementing automated invoicing processes, you can reduce the amount of time it takes to bill customers and ensure that invoices are always sent as soon as work is completed, or products have been dispatched.

Maintaining Regular Cash Flow

The revenue that comes into your business is used to fund continued operations, which means it’s vital to your ongoing success. If you can’t pay your own suppliers or staff, it’s going to damage your professional reputation and harm your operations. By making your cash flow a top priority and ensuring invoices are paid on time, however, you can ensure that your business benefits from consistent incoming revenue.

Understanding The Challenges That Come With Building Your Own Website

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Build your own website|Understanding The Challenges That Come With Building Your Own WebsiteMany people take on the challenge of building their own website, nowadays. This is largely thanks to the large range of DIY website builders available on the market, with many offering the chance to build beautiful websites without having to learn a single line of code. Of course, though, there are a lot of challenges that can come with building a website, and it’s always worth considering them before you get started.

Using The Code

While tools like Wix and Shopify promise to enable you to build websites without code, taking real control of your online platform is only possible if you’re able to use HTML, CSS, and Javascript. It’s very hard to make a website stand out when you use the default options you have available, and this means that you need to have a way to give yourself an edge.

Security

Many people don’t realise, but websites are key targets for hackers. Viruses and other security issues can easily impact a website, and this means that you need to have a good understanding of security, backups, and SSL to be able to run a website successfully. This can cause serious issues for companies that take sensitive data from their customers, with most countries having strict laws to protect people when they give their information to you.

Search Engines

No matter how you build your website, you will always need to perform SEO work to make sure that you appear in search engines like Google. This sort of work is a very specialist field, making it hard to break into it when you have a lot of other work on your plate. DIY platforms are better at dealing with SEO than they used to be, but most of this work happens away from your website, and this means that you can’t rely on them to help you.

User Experience

Designing a website that works well and appeals to users is very hard, some of the top Chicago web design companies are requiring that their team members have a lot of experience in the field of UX. Many people find that they are able to build a site that appeals to them, but this won’t impact other users in the same way, and more work has to be done to create a website that is good for a range of users.

Overcoming These Challenges

Overcoming these challenges has never been easier, but you don’t have to do it for yourself. Finding a web design agency to help with your website will ensure that you get the best possible results, while also never having to deal with the long list of challenges that can come with a DIY website. In most cases, your users will have a much better experience with a professionally made website.

Building a website can be a challenging process, with many people finding that they need help along the way. Thankfully, there are plenty of agencies out there, and you can usually find a company that is willing to help with your website.

Why your Business Telecoms will Determine your Success

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Business Telecoms|Why your Business Telecoms will Determine your SuccessThe advent of digital and online technologies has significantly changed all aspects of most businesses. Telecommunications are no exception and have benefited increasingly from innovations in the way people communicate. Business communication is key to ensuring your business success, as communications ensure smooth operations and seamless customer service regardless of what sector you operate in.

Key changes in business telecoms since the 2010s have most significantly been high-quality and high-speed internet, more cost-effective internet services, and cloud services. This shift to cloud services, in particular, has progressed at an incredible speed, and many businesses have been able to take advantage of the remote and flexible possibilities of this new telecommunications infrastructure.

Another significant change, and one that many businesses are looking to take advantage of with the advent of technology, is moving away from the need for physical equipment. This means less investment in physical hardware and taking advantage of hosted voice platforms.

What your business needs

An important part of finding the right business telecommunications solutions is knowing what your business needs. You know that your business cannot function smoothly without communication platforms but choosing the right one to suit your business requirements is the right first step. This means knowing how many staff you are accommodating, how many clients you are servicing, and how much new technology you need in your day-to-day operations.

Ask yourself whether you need a wired and connected system or a portable and interactive system. This will determine whether you choose something like a key system unit that provides features such as intercoms, memory dialing, and hold functions but is not portable or flexible if you are looking for mobile solutions. In that case, you may want to consider private branch exchange (PBX), which includes both analog and digital functions and allows for features such as digital voice mails, call recording, and interactive voice menus.

The latest generation of business telecom solutions allow for internet transmission of voice (VoIP), and even more innovative is unified communications (UC). This allows for features such as emailing, conferencing, instant messaging, and file sharing and is ideal for businesses with remote workers and flexible work environments.

Investing in the right telecoms solutions

Your telecoms solutions and innovations should be saving you money rather than being a costly investment. It is important to have a solution that is low maintenance and efficient. Efficiency is key to your telecommunications system as it means less time-wasting or cost implications. Communicating with your customers is important but making sure your staff are connected and not having to waste time waiting for a telecoms issue to be fixed is essential. This is time they could be using to make sales, ensure operational management and carry out other important tasks. A great first step is to visit https://www.kall8.com/business-phone-services/ for telecom resources. Knowing what is available out there will make choosing the right equipment a lot easier.

Another important aspect of having a smooth-running telecoms system as a business is the impression it makes on your customers. There is nothing worse than clients who complain about faulty telecommunications or finding it difficult to communicate with you through voice or video. Your telecoms should be seamless and continue to take advantage of technological advances to keep your customers and staff communicating and working together.

Do the research and find a service that suits your business needs before you choose a service that won’t be able to keep you in touch with your clients, customers, and business stakeholders.

How to Create a Positive Work Atmosphere

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Positive Work Atmosphere|How to Create a Positive Work AtmosphereThere are plenty of ways to creative a positive working environment for yourself and your employees. No matter how large your workforce or the space you have, you can make some simple adjustments to boost the harmony and productivity in your office. If you are just starting out with a new team or are looking to refresh your workplace, here are just a couple of ideas to help you get started in creating a great working environment.

Keep it clean

Making sure your office or workspace is clean is essential for the health and safety of yourself, your employees, and anyone that enters. Using professional cleaning services is a great way to ensure that your space is cleaned to a high level. This can help reduce illness and injury, and therefore staff sick days. It is also important to keep your workspaces clean as this helps give a good first impression to anyone entering the area. Having a clean office can also boost productivity and help prevent things from becoming lost or damaged.

Bring the outside in

When you work in an office, you may miss being around nature. This is where introducing plants into your work environment comes in. This simple action has a multitude of benefits; from boosting productivity and creativity to cleaning the air, plants are a great addition to help improve your work environment. Not all plants will thrive indoors, so make sure you choose the correct plant for the location. Common office plants include snake plants, succulents, aloe, or peace lilies, as they are relatively easy to look after and do not need to be kept outside.

Color psychology

The colors that feature in your office can also have an impact. Color psychology is the study of the way in which different colors and hues affect and impact human behavior. Whether you choose to completely redecorate or invest in some colored accessories or furniture, thinking about what colors you use can have an effect on yourself and your team. For example, red can be a high-energy color to paint your office, and green can help to maintain a sense of balance and increase productivity.

Noise

Another way to create a positive working atmosphere is to manage the noise. It can be very distracting if there is constant loud noise, and this can result in a lot of wasted time. If you cannot give employees their own individual work areas, items such as noise-reducing headphones can be incredibly useful. Quieter areas are also beneficial for taking breaks, so it is a good idea to have a separate area for breaks and rest, allowing employees to be distanced from their workspaces, which also prevents those around them from being distracted by colleagues on their breaks. You could even invest in nap rooms, as there are many benefits to taking a power nap at work. Interestingly, plants can also help reduce noise levels, as they can absorb sound or deflect it.