Transform Solution

New Post has been published on https://transformsolution.com/6-order-processing-tools-can-rev-up-your-business/

These 6 Order Processing Tools Can Rev Up Your Business

There are many signs that prove that all is not well with a business. Some of those signs include dismal order processing metrics and a noticeable reduction in the performance of KPIs such as Customer Order to Shipment Readiness and Average Order Lead Time. Thankfully, there are many order processing tools that practically improve the performance of various KPIs directly or indirectly. These tools help you to process orders quickly, clear inventory, and make deliveries on time. In this article, we take a look at six order processing tools that can breathe new life into your business.

1. StitchLabs

StitchLabs’ Order Management module is perfectly suited for small to medium sized businesses that are looking for an easy-to-use interface. It comes with a sales order master view and two-way sync of data, which will help you to send out shipment and other related status updates. You can also choose to automatically route sales orders based on geo-location and implement customized branding. If you find managing pre-orders and backorders difficult, StitchLabs’ solutions make all these processes a walk in the park. StitchLabs can be easily integrated into your existing infrastructure and will make both order and inventory management highly efficient.

2. ShipStation

If your business is suffering due to delayed deliveries and shipping difficulties, ShipStation is a tool that can help solve your problems. ShipStation helps users to import, manage and ship orders quickly and efficiently. It quickly connects shopping carts with carriers and marketplaces, helping you take your products to customers regardless of where they live. It also helps provide the best shipping discounts possible, which will ultimately make your customers happy. ShipStation can be integrated with a variety of ERP and CRM tools, so that you can reap its benefits without having to lose out on the benefits of existing tools.

3. ChannelGrabber

Retail commerce is a difficult territory that most businesses find confusing to wade through. ChannelGrabber is a retail e-commerce tool that helps you to enhance your sales. It helps you to sell anywhere in the world, and comes with features such as product content optimization, inventory management, order processing, etc. In addition, you can integrate it with a number of tools and is perfectly suited for businesses of all sizes. Using ChannelGrabber can quickly help you increase your sales and make deliveries in time, ensuring customer satisfaction and positive reviews.

4. SellBrite

If you were wondering how you could sell your products on marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, or Walmart, look no further than SellBrite. SellBrite makes processing orders on multiple marketplaces an easy task. It offers one-click integrations with Shopift, Sears, Jet, Etsy, and other marketplaces along with major stores such as Amazon. SellBrite merchants can expect 300% growth after a year of use, according to its developers. You might be surprised to learn that those who sell on more than three marketplaces often sell more than 156%. Using SellBrite to sell on multiple marketplaces is not only a smart idea, but also a necessary strategy.

5. NetSuite

Oracle’s NetSuite is a useful tool when it comes to order management and processing. While this is a complex tool with several modules and features, it also comes with order processing capabilities. It is particularly famous for helping businesses to automate order-to-cash processes. It eliminates manual bottlenecks and helps your business streamline quickly. You can also avoid errors and enhance operational efficiency. You can offer better customer care thanks to its return management module. In addition, it also helps you offer excellent promotions and pricing to your customers, so that customer satisfaction is guaranteed.

6. ShipEdge

If you are a small business that is looking for a tool which would help in shipping, ShipEdge is a possible solution to consider. This cloud-based software tool is known for its efficiency among small and medium sized businesses. You can quickly automate fulfillment and integrate it with QuickBooks. QuickBooks is often used by small stores to manage their accounts, and ShipEdge adds an easy facility to ship products and process invoices quickly. ShipEdge also comes with other features such as inventory management, customer communication, and reports generation, all of which help you to run your business smoothly and efficiently.

Use the tool that is most suited for your business

New Post has been published on https://transformsolution.com/7-cyber-security-tips-for-e-commerce-websites/

7 Cyber Security Tips for E-commerce Websites

Running an e-commerce website comes with a number of responsibilities, and the most important of these is ensuring a high-level of security. A recent Ponemon Institute study revealed that 54% of companies endured more than one attack on their data or IT infrastructure. Fileless techniques were used by 77% of those attackers. All these points towards ensuring that you take all the necessary steps to keep your online store safe and secure from malicious threats and cyber-attacks. E-commerce websites in particular should place emphasis on cyber security because most online stores save their customers’ card information. In this article, let us take a look at 5 cyber security tips to safeguard your e-commerce website.

1. Safeguard your payment gateway

Security certificates instill trust in visitors and ensure a higher rate of checkouts becoming successfully. The most common method to instill this confidence among shoppers is by getting an SSL certificate. However, you will need to upgrade to the latest version, often marketed as the TLS certificate. Both SSL and TLS certificates are digital certificates that prove that you are doing your bit to keep your website secure. As TLS uses a more powerful encryption algorithm, your e-commerce website remains safe and secure. Check out this Indiana University page on SSL and TLS. While you are at it, make sure you are also PCI DSS compliant so that card payments are secure.

2. Protect yourself against DDoS attacks

In recent months, there has been a 64% increase in the number of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. This happens when there are too many HTTP requests and the server fails, allowing the hacker to launch an attack and enter your website for malicious purposes. Make sure that you have an incident response plan to implement and be prepared for DDoS attacks always. There are also cryptographic threats such as “Cryptojack” which use your website and devices to mine cryptocurrency. Coin Telegraph reported that cryptocurrency exchanges are common DDoS victims across the world.

3. Make access management your top priority

With most employees bringing their own devices to work, you will need to restrict who has access to files and data, and when. It is important to restrict access to data and applications only when the staff is working on certain tasks. At other times, make sure to remotely deny access to staff. You will need an IT team to help you with access management, and it is a good idea to seek the help of an external vendor for access management if you don’ have an IT department of your own. 75% of organizations have a BYOD policy in place. Do you?

4. Audit your eCommerce platform

Whether you are currently using Magento or Salesforce, or Marketo, you will need to audit all your CRM and e-commerce software programs, including your e-commerce website. If you have not fixed bugs and if all your programs are not upgraded to the latest versions, it is important to do so quickly. External vendors can help you setup your store afresh, so that previous versions are upgraded to the latest versions, without causing outages or website downtime. With Gartner reporting that $96 billion will be spent by companies on cybersecurity, you might want to reduce your expenditure by outsourcing repetitive security tasks.

5. Store only required information

Many e-commerce websites have the bad habit of storing unnecessary customer information. CRMs often encourage this habit too, and a lot of data that companies collect are quite useless. Make sure that you collect only the information you need, such as email and name of the customer, to stay in touch with them. Storing unnecessary information such as what their educational qualifications are or other details may pose security risks. Too much data will become unmanageable and will cause you to create vulnerabilities. As 75% of successful attacks are going to be fileless, you better watch out on your data.

6. Comply with GDPR

Last but not the least, begin to comply with GDPR, if you haven’t already. GDPR regulations apply to most e-commerce businesses as invariably someone will purchase from your website who is a European Union citizen. Ensuring that you take informed consent from your customers before collecting personally identifiable information will help you comply with this regulation. 45% of companies have set aside money to pay fines. Why would you want to do that? Comply with GDPR, and add an extra layer of security. If you need help with GDPR compliance, contact an external vendor today.

7. Update your policy

Security really depends on company policies. If you do not prioritize your and your customer’s data and privacy, you probably will not feel motivated to do the extra bit to ensure security. Involve all the decision makers and make cyber security a top priority. Cyber attacks are considered the second highest financial risk, and there is no reason to allow this to happen to you. Make staff training (related to cyber security and device management) an integral part of your policies, and enable two-factor authentication for your customers so that they don’t rely on simple passwords that are vulnerable to attackers. Seek the help of a security partner when you feel you can’t do this all by yourself.

Be prepared for threats always

As you can see, ensuring cyber security on your e-commerce website is no easy cake. You will need to constantly engage in risk assessment, and make sure that you are prepared for newer threats. Threats are always dynamic in nature, and they change and evolve over a period of time. Focus on access management and device management, and ensure that you comply with regulations such as GDPR. To keep your website safe and secure, focus on averting DDoS attacks, get PCI DSS compliant, and implement security certificates such as TSL.

New Post has been published on https://transformsolution.com/5-ways-to-nurture-your-leads-better/

5 Ways to Nurture Your Leads Better

It’s a question that every business will invariably ask, sooner or later. How one can nurture their leads better is a question that tugs at the heart of even the most seasoned C-level executives, because there are just so many ways to do it. Technology helps us connect with our leads easily, and we can nurture them using multiple marketing automation tools. Nurturing one’s leads requires a lot of time and dedication, even with automation tools, and it is always an ongoing effort.

In this article, let us take a look at 5 ways to nurture your leads better.

1. Automate the process of auditing your leads

Before you begin nurturing your leads, conduct an audit of existing leads and analyze which ones are worth nurturing, which ones would like to be nurtured, and who would like to be removed from your list. Considering GDPR rollout and privacy compliance issues, it is important to conduct an audit and ensure that you have their permission to contact them. Your CRM can help you automate the process of auditing your leads, and comply with GDPR using certain third-party plugins.

You can also automate the process of auditing your social media followers. Curate followers who express interest in your products or solutions by using social analytics tools, and engage them on social media. Social media analytics provide in-depth insight about your leads, and helps you identify the followers who will most likely be interested in purchasing.

Robotics Process Automation is an important area that is bound to help in lead auditing. Bots work 24/7 and work at a cost of 25% to 35% of what a human might cost your company. RPO helps in automating internal audits, including that of leads, gathering information about market population, and predicting outcomes. This industry report gives you a better idea about RPO in lead nurturing.

2. Optimize remarketing and use analytics to predict lead-worthiness

Remarketing allows you to target potential leads by placing ads strategically as they browse on other websites, if they had visited your website. There are plugins that help you to automate this process. If you are unable to optimize remarketing to nurture your leads and display relevant ads to them, contact a partner agency who would be better equipped to do this for you. In some cases, you might have to redesign your landing pages as well.

You can also use analytics to predict to whom you must send out newsletters and other communication. Data analytics automatically predicts which of your leads are likely to be warm, and which ones will receive your messages positively. Autoresponders can be used for quick communication.

Marketing automation systems are a good place to start personalizing email messages, social media responses, etc. by using previous data. Journey Management by Adobe is a good example of this kind of martech. Automated marketing solutions by IBM is another place to explore.

Image Source: Remarketing Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide

3. Automate content marketing

To back up your automated lead nurturing practices, start creating content that is targeted at your audience, and make sure that you hold offline and online events as well.

If there is one thing that makes leads happy and likely customers, it is great content. All your content needs to be created with your leads in mind, and with helping and educating them as your primary motives. Do not push commercial or highly persuasive messages to your valuable leads because that is usually a turn-off to most people. Create niche content based on actual insights derived from marketing analytics. Similarly, a great way to nurture existing leads is by creating events that help them to learn more or participate in your brand activities.

Automating content marketing is a step in the right direction. Content curation by using Scoop.it, social sharing using Buffer or Hootsuite, and monitoring responses to content marketing by using Mention are some examples of using marketing automation tools.

4. Use the latest technology

In recent years, technology has evolved greatly, and newer technologies such as artificial intelligence, chatbots, data analytics, and others have helped businesses to learn more about their customers and leads. Using these technologies will help you to engage your target audience better. Businesses that use data analytics fare better in lead nurturing goals than those that stick to traditional methods.

Marketing automation software expenditure is going to be worth around $32 billion this year. This MarketingSherpa study shows that social media outreach will depend on automation, just like integrated behavior-based email workflows will. Lead scoring and personalized content are other areas in which marketing automation tools can be used to nurture leads.

Image Source: Demand Base

5. Use automation to enhance your strategy

Finally, make sure that you have a lead nurturing strategy. If you already have it, review it and make changes to it. A lead nurturing strategy can borrow from agile marketing methodology and incorporate brainstorming, regular meetings, and constant changes to the actual strategy. Most businesses do not incorporate marketing automation and partnering with external agencies as part of their strategy. Both these methods need to be employed for successful lead nurturing.

You can automate lead capture, use automated lead magnets and landing page conversion techniques, and engage in automated lead scoring techniques to further optimize lead nurturing. Automated lead scoring in particular helps you to chase leads that truly will convert. Include automation in your lead nurturing strategy for better results. High performing companies are 3 times more likely to use marketing automation in lead nurturing than those who perform poorly.

Combine various methods to arrive at custom strategies

To nurture your leads better, begin with implementing marketing automation to audit your existing leads and social media followers. Use data analytics and martech to gain insights about your existing leads and social media followers. Next, use remarketing and analytics to predict lead-worthiness, and automate your content marketing. Incorporate a combination of external vendor partnerships and marketing automation to nurture your leads better.

New Post has been published on https://transformsolution.com/get-your-marketing-done-without-hiring/

Get Your Marketing Done Without Hiring With This Simple Secret

Have you ever wondered how you can complete more projects on time, without having to hire more staff? Most marketing agencies have difficulties in hiring more full time people simply because there offices may not be large enough, while others may have limited budget for salary payouts. A few other agencies may find it difficult to hire extra staff because their projects are not continuous, and having more employees on permanent payroll negatively affects their bottom line. In this article, let us take a look at a simple secret that has helped businesses across the world complete their projects in time, with no additional hiring.

So, what’s the secret? Get small and lean.

The secret is, it’s not really a secret but a tactic that is ignored by most companies, even if they already know it. All you need to do is identify your strategic and non-strategic activities, and prioritize strategic activities over non-strategic marketing activities.

Before we begin to identify strategic and non-strategic activities, let us first try to understand the terms.

Strategic activity: A strategic activity can be described as a marketing activity that continues to ensure long-term success for your business. It is the kind of activity that helps your agency to differentiate and find a competitive edge. Strategic activities are those that make your agency special. These are the activities in which you have talent over others, and make you unique. These unique activities not only provide a competitive edge, but also define your agency’s brand.

Non-strategic activity: These are the kind of activities that anyone with expertise can do. These are not unique activities and do not require your special talent for them to be completed. Non-strategic activities usually involve monotonous and repetitive tasks such as SEO, handling social ads such as Facebook Ads or Google AdWords, content writing, etc. Non-strategic activities will not directly make you the agency that you are, but instead, consume a lot of temporal and manpower resources.

Read this article for more information about strategic and non-strategic activities.

Source: Why Outsource? 

The importance of divestment in getting smaller

Before considering getting external help for your non-strategic activities, you can also consider divesting some of your assets. After all, getting smaller is known to help companies get bigger. Investors love companies that divest their assets so that they can focus on core activities. In other words, divesting helps you to focus on your strategic activities, while remaining small. Non-strategic activities can be handed over to trusted partners, freeing up precious temporal and manpower resources. You’ll not only get non-strategic marketing work done in time, but you will have ample resources to build on your strategic marketing activities, allowing your agency to grow in size and stature.

Companies that divest 20% of their business seem to succeed more than companies that divest just 5%.

84% of companies feel divesting helped them to create long-term value.

Almost 50% of companies already plan to divest to get leaner and more efficient.

Find more statistics about divestment in this Business Insider article.

Get small, get bigger. Get more of those marketing tasks done.

Getting smaller and leaner helps you to focus better on your strengths and hone your skills. Marketing projects require a lot more creativity and focus than they did a few years ago, simply because there are far too many players out there. If your clients do not see the results they want, they may simply hire another agency.

To get small and lean, here is what you need to do:

Define your strategic marketing activities and assign only these tasks to your employees.

Define non-strategic marketing activities and get a trusted partner to complete these activities in time.

Divest your assets (including manpower), to get small and lean. Use the earned resources to invest in strategic marketing activities.

Continuously monitor your projects and adopt agile marketing techniques.

Do not hesitate to seek external help whenever you can, as the earned time and man-hours help you to hone your strategic marketing activities.

Seek help before you need it

New Post has been published on https://transformsolution.com/7-tricks-for-marketing-agencies-to-handle-competition/

7 Tricks for Marketing Agencies to Handle Competition

Marketing agencies have the unenviable task of managing competition, which is often fierce. The rise in digital media has led to the mushrooming of several niche marketing agencies, leading to a situation where only the smartest tend to thrive. However, if you are smart enough, handling competition shouldn’t be all that hard. In this article, let us take a look at 7 tricks which can help you learn how to deal with competitors in business.

1. Use agile techniques

What initially started as a software development method has now evolved into a management style and business philosophy. Agile techniques focus on continuous iteration, feedback, and constant evolution of projects based on feedback. When you begin to approach your marketing projects with an agile philosophy, you will always be on the edge and ensure that your projects are completed to the satisfaction of your clients. Seek your clients’ feedback and constantly evolve their marketing projects depending on various variables.

Expert tip: Spend time learning about agile methodology, and how it can help marketing agencies.

Forbes recently published a post regarding agile marketing’s advent and revolution.

2. Get leaner

A number of agencies are saturated with projects and reach a plateau of sorts. They just can’t scale anymore, nor can they deliver the way they used to previously. This is because, they may not have enough manpower to handle all the projects, and may not have the financial resources to hire more. Follow the principle of minimalism in everything that you do, and take up projects only if you like them, and are sure that you can finish them in time. A minimalist approach will put your agency far ahead of your competitors.

Expert tip: Learn about the minimalist approach, which will help your agency to get lean and mean.

This Neil Patel article describes the 6 laws of minimalist marketing.

3. Implement competitor analysis

You simply cannot beat competition without understanding your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses. You will also need to have hard data about their strategies, their approach to projects, and other such details. Competitor analysis helps you to understand your playing ground better, so that you are well-prepared to take your service to the next level. Implementing competitor analysis should be an integral part of your overall business strategy.

Expert tip: Seek the help of specialized agencies that are great at competitor analysis.

Read this article to understand what competitor analysis is.

4. Develop a niche

One way to make sure that you rival your competitors is to find your niche. If you know yourself as an agency well, you will be able to find skills that you are especially good at. Such skills Amy help you find your niche. On the other hand, your way of project handling and customer service can provide you a niche too. Implement minimalism, agile marketing, and focus on getting leaner and meaner to develop a niche and stick to it.

Expert tip: A niche project management strategy will help you to add that special oomph to a regular project.

This article rightly points out that niche marketing doesn’t actually exist, but is created smartly by identifying customer/client needs.

5. Focus on core strategies

Identify the core strategies that make you special, and the reason why clients keep coming back to you. Most marketing agencies have strengths that they know are for theirs to keep. Focus on shaping and strengthening these strengths. Non-strategic activities like blog writing, SEO, Google ADWords, etc can be handled by a trusted partner. Do not spend time on non-strategic activities because that will stop you from putting your arsenal against your competitors.

Expert tip: Brainstorm to identify what accounts as a non-core strategy in your company.

Check out this LinkedIn article by Alif Bharmal to identify your core and non-core activities.

Source: Core versus Non Core Activities

6. Be imaginative and creative

Being imaginative and creative are the fundamental qualities of a marketing agency. Not only do you need creativity to run campaigns, but also to handle competitors. Encourage creative thinking at work, and ask your employees to brainstorm for creative marketing ideas regularly. In fact, brainstorming is a part of agile marketing technology, and when implemented correctly, can help you deal with competitors efficiently.

Expert tip: To make your marketing tricks go to the next level, make creativity a priority.

7. Invest in technology

An often forgotten or ignored trick is to invest in relevant technology. This may involve purchasing better design software, or fixing those old MacBooks that your employees are sluggishly using. Go for a technology upgrade and observe how quickly productivity increases as well. After all, right technology is one of the most important weapons to beat the competition.

Expert tip: Do not automate everything in a frenzy, as that will harm you in other ways.

This article lists the pros and cons of marketing automation.

Find the right mix

New Post has been published on https://transformsolution.com/7-secrets-rev-up-project-management-marketing-agencies/

7 Secrets that Rev Up Project Management for Marketing Agencies

Marketing agencies across the world have a hard time trying to manage the projects. The competition is stifling for most agencies out there, and managing adequate cash flow is a bigger issue for most companies. There is always an agency which threatens to outpace and out-price you, and competition churn can cause a lot of organizational stress.

To help you put your systems and processes in place, we have compiled 7 secrets to boost your project management pace. Not only will you be able to reduce the number of processes and manage your cash flow better, you will also be able to handle customer and competition churn better. Using these changes can streamline various activities, improve productivity and help you to scale your business quickly and avoid problems that other marketing agencies face.

1. Make sure your tool is flexible and scalable

  Project management tool is critical for the success of any agency, with so many tools available you have to ensure that what all features required for your agency is present. Few essential features, which can help you manage the projects effectively are:

Flexible – For agile project management, it is essential that project management system be flexible, you can easily adjust new schedule, add new items and the system automatically adjust timelines.

Collaboration – Many project team member work from remote location, collaboration is very critical for the success of a project. The project management tool should allow all stakeholders to collaborate effectively and tie to the project together. Tools like Skype, email, etc. have no synchronization with project management tool and collaboration is neglected.

Keeping communications within PM tool ensures, keep all project team informed and improve the productivity.

Project team time tracking – With so many tasks assigned by the customer it is important to track the time spend by team member on various activities, it can help you do the costing, justify the cost and find the area of improvement.

Budgeting – For better management of cash flow, its essential to track and monitor cost at project level, an inbuilt budgeting tools which can compare the projected project at each with the actual cost could be very handy.

2. Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation can be very handy in improving the productivity, find all the repetitive task which can be automated and give you better RoI. HubSpot and Marketo are both used by companies of all sizes to manage their projects better.

Take a look at this article that describes how business process automation may not be all that helpful.

3. Implement agile marketing

McKinsey recently wrote about how agile marketing can help agencies complete their projects quickly. For this to happen, put an agile marketing team in place, and make sure every project is handled in an agile manner. Train your employees in Scrum and make it a point to engage with external teams that follow an agile philosophy too.

Expert tip:  Run tests regularly and follow agile methodology for all your digital and SEO projects.

Source: Agile marketing: A step-by-step guide

  4. Get an agile partner

  Digital Marketing when started was just about  tagging for SEO, Adwords and Facebook but now extends to many activities and which are often overlooked tasks like Keyword search, On page optimization, Industry listing, Backlink, Social bookmarking, Content planning – creation – distribution, Online reputation management especially on Social Media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat etc and many more. 

There are many non-strategic tasks, which you cannot do at the competitive cost and can impact the cash flow. On-boarding a partner who can deliver quality work at cost-effective, could be better than doing all the activities in-house.

The project management tool with features collaboration, time management and costing be very handy in managing the partner.

A professional partner that follows agile philosophy can bring life to project management and much required financial control. Your partner should able to curate marketing activities and ensure that your clients and customers do not feel alienated.

Expert tip: Email list building, SEO service, handling Google AdWords projects, and social media management are all activities that cannot be automated. Give a humane plus agile touch to your project by hiring an extended team.

Learn about various project management roles in this useful article.

There are many boutique agencies, which are 100% remote agency – work from anywhere in the world, like www.overgovideo.com.

5. Seek support and training

It is not enough to hire a professional team to do your work. You will also need to train your staff to replicate what is being done by your extended team. Always ask your extended team if they can train your staff in handling marketing projects. Seek support whenever you need so that you learn the finer aspects of project management.

Expert tip: Train every employee in project management, even if they probably will not directly manage marketing projects.

Take a look at this in-depth article about project managers.

  6. Seek customization services

There are many services which you don’t have the expertise, your agile partner may also be able to help you customize service. Speak to them and confirm if they are HubSpot certified. You should also confirm if they are Google Search, Google Shopping certified. A certification adds weigh to the partner credentials and will be able to assist you in specific digital marketing services.

Expert tip: Customize your project management tool based on your available manpower and skill set.

7. Combine automation with human intelligence

You should always remember that automating your marketing projects can only go a certain distance. The major portion of implementing marketing campaigns cannot be, and shouldn’t be automated. While you can schedule emails and social posts, you still need human experience, tact, and intelligence to carry out a major portion of marketing campaigns. Your extended team will be able to help you with writing great content, understanding your client needs better, and ensuring that your projects are completed in time.

Expert tip: Do not devalue importance of human participation, though automation tools are available.

This academic article rightly shows that the answer to success is a combination of human intervention and automation.

  Rounding off 

Marketing agencies encounter a variety of challenging scenarios during the execution of digital marketing projects. Each project has its own set of complexity, the above practices would set the process help you plan, implement, control all activities in a structured way and remain competitive.

New Post has been published on https://transformsolution.com/6-ideas-inbound-marketing-agency-scale-quickly/

6 Ideas for an Inbound Marketing Agency to Scale Quickly

If you thought it was easy to scale an inbound marketing agency, you are quite wrong. It not only is a hard job but also quite complex. As technology keeps changing every day, the rules of the game change too, and this is why there are no clear-cut strategies to make your inbound marketing agency scale faster. Yet, this cheat-sheet will help you find ideas to scale your agency quickly. After all, who doesn’t want to get leaner, smarter, and more profitable, as opposed to bloated and stagnant? Read on to find out how you can reach stellar heights in no time, and ensure that your inbound marketing company brings back the profits you always dreamed of.

1. Expand your team

Nothing pulls down a fledging agency than a staff crunch. Imagine this scenario. You have begun to get new clients but are unable to do all the content writing, keyword searches, social marketing, etc. In other words, your work hurts simply because you are getting too much work. Either hire internally or partner with an extended team. Extended teams can work per project or on a regular basis.

Expert tip: Choose your extended team carefully so that they reflect your brand’s character and personality.

Take a look at why extended teams trump other forms of hiring.

2. Diversify your business

Do not stop at your regular inbound marketing services. Begin to look for what your clients really want, and offer newer services. If you have been offering just blogs and articles, move up a step further and offer case studies and eBooks too. Not only will you be able to generate more income, but you will also appear like a more solid business, which attracts more leads anyway. Most importantly, approach other industry sectors for work too.

Expert tip: Do not spread yourself thin. While diversification of business is great, you should stick to doing what you are really good at.

Learn how to diversify your business by reading this article.

Source: A Basic Guide To Make A Winning Inbound Marketing Strategy

3. Upsell related services

Nothing is stopping you from telling your clients to buy something better from you. Suggest related services that will help them achieve their goals. Upsell eBooks if you are writing blogs, or ask your clients to pay more for a more creative social media campaign. Offer premium services at a discounted rate so that your clients pay more for better services. It will be a win-win situation for everyone involved.

Expert tip: Both upselling and cross-selling are known to help greatly with sales and increase profitability.

Ever wondered about the advantages of upselling and cross-selling? Read this article to learn more.

4. Develop a niche

While it is important to diversify your business, you should also find a niche within inbound marketing services. If your skills are better in technology, use them to offer superior SEO services than struggling with stylish content. You could also find a niche client-base. If you have a background in software, for example, you could focus on software companies and helping them with their inbound marketing. This helps you to scale quickly.

Expert tip: Do not restrict yourself to a few services just because you need to find a niche.

Niche businesses may actually be your ideal clients. Read this article to find out why.

5. Remain updated on trends

Technology is fast changing and so are the different inbound marketing techniques. You need to remain on the edge to remain competitive, and that is the only way you will be able to scale quickly. If you find yourself reaching a plateau or if you become stagnant in what you offer, you will not be able to scale. Instead, your competitors may soon overtake your agency. Take time to understand what’s happening around you, and how inbound marketing is changing every day.

Expert tip: Network with other inbound marketing agencies to learn what they are doing.

Check out Neil Patel’s inbound marketing trends for 2018.

  Source: 3 Inbound Marketing Trends to Master Before 2018

6. Focus on creativity

Inbound marketing consists of activities and techniques that draw customers to services and products with the help of content marketing, SEO, branding, and social media marketing. Thus, focusing on creativity is very important. A matter-of-fact approach will lead your clients nowhere, and may even hurt their business. Focus on boosting creativity and this will help you see happier clients, allowing you to scale quickly based on recommendations and references.

Expert tip: Hire only the most creative staff you can afford to recruit.

This Harvard Business Review article explores what creativity looks like in marketing today.

Seek external help if you must

New Post has been published on https://transformsolution.com/6-ways-boost-your-pricing-management/

6 Ways to Boost Your Pricing Management

The ability to quote a price that your products or services truly merit is a gift to be cherished. Most small businesses often undercharge and sell themselves short because they lack confidence, data, and strategy to set effective pricing. Pricing management gives small businesses such as yours the power to ensure you get the best price you deserve in any particular situation. Let us take a look at how you can boost your pricing management in this article.

1. Focus on data

Gathering data related to your products and services, and how they are being purchased by your target audience is an important aspect of pricing management. Gather all the data you can, and focus on building your data processing and data analytics capabilities, so that you are able to forecast successful pricing strategies in advance. Build fact bases at the transaction level and identify all variables possible that could affect your revenue.

If you are not able to gather the data you need, there are virtual assistants who can do this job for you. VAs are professional data professionals who use their humane decision making skills to curate data that is appropriate for your business. This is something automation and algorithms still can’t achieve. Let us not forget that even artificial intelligence and automation cannot replace human decision making skills when it comes to data gathering and curation, so that you can adopt an informed pricing strategy.

This article describes how to build an effective pricing management strategy, and one of the points it discusses is gathering data.

  2. Manage workflows related to pricing

Pricing-related workflows are very important to ensure you achieve the kind of success you expect to, with the help of optimized pricing. Workflows can be automated so that you do not spend unnecessary time drawing up flowcharts and sales workflows. There are specific software programs that help you to visualize workflows related to pricing so that you can take the best decision possible for your business. When these software tools are handled by experienced virtual assistants and data professionals, you get results that are more in sync with reality. Competitive edge depends on how you are able to manage your workflows and implement effective strategies.

This inspiring article teaches SMBs to look for the 10 must-have features in every Workflow Management System.

Source: KISSFLO

3. Don’t forget the customer

At the end of the day, you are selling your products to your customers. Thus, it is important to keep customers’ needs and requirements at the top of your priority list while coming up with pricing strategy. Make sure that you consider consumer behavior while deciding price. Customer behavior is what makes your products tick or lose. It is one thing to have a lot of data and analytics in hand, and another to complement all that data with contextual customer information.

Learn more about customer-driven pricing, a valuable strategy that is changing ecommerce stores’ profitability across the world. This is particularly important for boutique and small businesses.

4. Outsource pricing management

If you were wondering how to do price management, look no further than an offshore agency which can help you solve all matters related to pricing management process. Outsourcing pricing management is a good idea because not every company has the time or infrastructure to engage in something complicated. Agencies not only help you come up with a pricing strategy business plan, but they will also help you to boost pricing management overall.

Meanwhile, you might also want to take a look at the real cost of IT outsourcing, which may come with many hidden costs. Choose a reputed agency to avoid hidden costs.

5. Study purchase patterns

It is important to understand market trends, purchase patterns, and how certain products may have more demand in certain periods of time or even certain points during the day, There are tools to help you with studying purchase patterns, especially when it comes to e-commerce websites. If you have an e-commerce website, make sure that you study web traffic data, consumer behavior, website usage, and other metrics so that you understand purchase patterns better.

This McKinsey report explores how business customers buy and what purchase patterns can really tell you. Take a moment to read it, as it is a lengthy document.

Source: McKinsey

6. Invest in technology

While this may seem like a no-brainer, pricing management depends on algorithms, data, and automation. Consequently, you will have to invest in IT, security, and IT outsourcing to ensure that your pricing strategy is on the dot all the time. If you are unable to invest in such technology yourself, there are several agencies that offer pricing management over the cloud, so that you don’t have to make huge investments. After all, a pricing management strategy that is not backed by technology is not going to go too far.

Take a look at this important article published by The Telegraph, which lists the business tech areas that small businesses must invest in.

Do not ignore pricing management

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7 After-sales Support Mistakes Companies Make

If you thought you could forget about your customer after selling a product, you are very wrong. Whether you’ve sold a product or a service, after-sales support is something that no business can ever avoid. Usually, after-sales support consists of upgrade options, repairs, warranties, and guarantees. However, what is often ignored and missed is after-sales customer support. There are many ways to make a customer feel ignored and unwanted, and one of them is by not providing adequate after-sales support. In this article, let us take a look at the 7 after-sales support mistakes companies make, and how you can avoid making the same mistakes yourself.

1. Not explaining the product or service

Most businesses are just too pleased that they were able to clinch a deal or sell a difficult product. They often forget to explain the product or service that they’ve just sold. This leads to a situation where the customer feels they need further assistance and end up calling customer care. This can be avoided by making product demonstration and service explanations a part of your sales protocol. Make sure that you have a dedicated team to explain all the services and products you sell in detail, to your clients and customers. They shouldn’t leave your office or store without complete information. If you sell online, follow up with a call.

Knowledge Networks PDI found that in-store product demonstrations helped a product sales to shoot up by 475%

2. Not interacting consistently post-sales

A common mistake that businesses make is, they do not keep the conversation going. Just because a sale was closed doesn’t mean your relationship with the customer has come to an end. On the contrary, it is the beginning of a wonderful relationship which will not only satisfy your customer but will also help you build potential business and sales opportunities. Keep the conversation going, and communicate consistently via email, social media, etc. You can invite your customers to a members-only blog or fanzine, and make sure that fresh and relevant premium content is delivered to them.

93% of leads that convert do so by the 6th call attempt.

3. Providing incomplete information

Once a sale has been made, you need to make sure that your customer has all the information required regarding the product r service. However, most companies forget this crucial fact and rely upon brochures and websites to do that. Nothing replaces a one-to-one interaction between you and your customer regarding your products and services. Make sure that your sales team provides complete information about the product and service, and that they are always available to answer questions at any point in time after-sales.

4. Ignoring cross-selling and upselling opportunities

Previous clients and customers are wonderful opportunities for future sales. However, businesses simply forget their customers and try to look for new ones. Previous customers can be potential targets for cross-selling and up-selling opportunities. All you need to do is make sure that you inform your customers and clients of related or better products and services. Most likely, they will opt for it because they already trust your brand enough.

Up to 30% of sales could be attributed due to product recommendations and cross-selling, according to this Forrester report.

Source: Using Cross-sells and Upsells to Increase Revenue (Infographic)

5. Not handling complaints well

This is a no-brainer but a number of companies ignore post-sales customer support. They often do not handle complaints well, and no actions are taken when there are issues with the products or services. Always welcome feedback and if your customer or client has a complaint to make, show courtesy and earnestly attempt to fix the issue at hand. Usually, you will be able to fix the issue right away. If you are unable to do that, you can either offer discounts and apologies or come up with alternative solutions.

6. Not communicating with the customers on a regular basis

Interacting with customers on a consistent basis as previously discussed is vastly different from communicating with customers on a regular basis. If you have new products or services to sell, it is your previous customer who should be informed first. Unfortunately, many businesses often forget this fact and tend to focus on newer ones. Make sure that you always keep all communication channels open, and inform your customer of every relevant development that might help you cement the relationship.

Leads that are nurtured regularly make purchases that are 47% larger than leads that are not nurtured.

7. Not treating previous customers with the respect they deserve

Last but not the least, many companies forget that customers like to be treated with respect and dignity. They take post-sales communication a little too enthusiastically and end up spamming customers constantly. The opposite is true too, and many companies often simply ignore their previous customers or treat them unfavorably. This leads to losing business. To avoid this, treat every customer with respect and do not over-communicate with them. Also, make sure that you always remain in touch and ensure that you maintain a healthy relationship with them.

Seek professional help, if need be

New Post has been published on https://transformsolution.com/automation-and-outsourcing-make-sales-order-processing-efficient/

How Automation and Outsourcing Make Sales Order Processing Efficient

Businesses often feel helpless in their ability to service customers. Sales reps waste their time filling up order forms instead of servicing customers. Delay on sales front leads to delay on all other fronts and the entire sales order processing workflow takes a hit.

Despite the intent to grow, inefficient sales order processing makes capacity expansion a challenge.Sales order must be circulated within the company to give order updates to inventory, production, warehouse, shipping, and finance department so that the company is prepared to fulfill the order and receive payment.

Let us find out how sales process automation and outsourcing sales ordering infuse efficiency in your business operations.

How automation makes sales order processing efficiently

1. Maintain data accuracy across the organization

When order processing is manual, it not only takes more time to generate sales order, the process is subjected to errors with multiple data entries and re-entries across different departments. Automating sales processing and integrating it with different systems enables you to maintain data accuracy. It also gives you more control over data because the data is only accessible to relevant personnel.

Nearly 50% of successful businesses use marketing automation to measure performance and show ROI.

Ever wondered what data accuracy is? This detailed tutorial helps you learn from scratch.

2. Reduce order fulfillment time

Sales order management system allows all involved departments to view the sales order as soon as the sales team generates it. Multiple tasks like managing sales and purchase orders, creating shipments, and sending delivery updates can be accomplished through centralized sales order processing. This enables the company to reduce time in processing orders along with the ability to process multiple orders.

75% of marketing professionals feel sales order processing automation helps them save time.

In simpler terms, order fulfillment time can be described as the “total waiting time” as experienced by the client or customer. To check how to calculate it, take a look at this reference.

3. Auto-generate order forms

Process automation solutions give sales team access to customer account information making it easier for them to generate sales order. They can pull out specific pricing for each customer, add order quantity, and purchase history along with special instructions to auto-generate sales order form online. Similarly, an order form is auto-generated for customers’ record thus avoiding paperwork and the necessity to generate forms manually.

91% of marketing professionals felt that using an automation tool would help them process orders and serve customers better.

This article lists steps to optimize your order forms so that you can boost your sales.

4. Customer satisfaction

Sales performance management gives your sales team an opportunity to dedicate more time to growing orders than managing them through repetitive clerical tasks. The sales team can easily set re-order point for customers and get updates on the stock level while closing deals. Customers get quick answers to their order-related queries. They can track order status without calling customer service support or sales representatives thereby enhancing satisfaction and support efficiency.

Automation garners a lot of positive feedback on social media, according to this study.

If you were wondering how to measure customer satisfaction at the push of a button, this New Yorker feature explains very well how.

5. Process orders from anywhere

Customers may use different channels like agent visit, email, phone call, or online order portal to place an order. Sales personnel irrespective of their location can instantly generate sales order online. They circumnavigate the need to go to the office to generate the order. The process of order fulfillment begins as soon as the sales order is generated and concerned departments get down to their part of the job.

You can expect a sales productivity increase to the tune of 14.5% if you adopt marketing automation.

This exclusive Gartner report discusses what order processing automation can really do for a business.

6. Optimize sales order processing

Sales order automation allows sales reps to build workflows that direct them through qualification conversations, suggests ways to take the deal forward and automate tasks like filling order forms. Thereby, the process of taking orders, approving, scheduling, and fulfilling them becomes seamless.

What’s more, 80% of automation tool users found that their conversions increased by 77%.

This whitepaper studies how manual processing of orders causes challenges to businesses, and how using SAP might help overcome them. Regardless of which automation tool you choose to use, this whitepaper has some interesting insights.

7. Marketing automation for small business

Sales order processing aids your marketing efforts as well. With order process automation, marketers get real-time access to various sales parameters like order history, key customers, average order size, key products etc making it easier for them to analyze data to gain insights. It allows them to develop marketing strategies to engage customers better.

88% of marketing professionals felt automating sales reports and analysis gave them more time to focus on engaging with customers.

This exhaustive McKinsey report is a telling example of how automation is revolutionizing small businesses across the world.

8. Flexibility

Order process automation enables you to modify sales documents to incorporate unique customer requirements, complex pricing, and discount policies. It is flexible enough to integrate with other systems like inventory management, warehouse management, and accounting systems to streamline customer service functions.

There is a growth of almost 20% in machine learning, an area of automation that is bound to have far-reaching effects on automation and outsourcing of order processing, leading to the flexibility of operations.

There have been reports of automation causing dilemmas related to flexibility. This research paper weighs the pros and cons of automation with flexibility in mind.

Why you must outsource sales order processing

If you think automating will solve all your problems, you couldn’t be farther away from the truth. Most automation tools cost a lot of money, and you may need to hire people to manage these tools anyway. The best course of action for you would be to outsource your sales order automation requirements to an offshore agency.

Outsourcing sales ordering accentuates sales order processing benefits by bringing in added efficiency to the system. This is how outsourcing streamlines sales order processing.

1. End-to-end HR support

When you outsource sales process automation, you need not recruit, train or deploy customer support and fulfillment team. All your HR requirements are taken care of by outsourcing company that hires skilled and dedicated order processing team.

Read this Guardian article to know if the time is right to outsource HR.

2. Absorb employee attrition

Issues like temporary labor shortage, employee attrition do not affect your business when you outsource sales order processing. Your outsourcing business partner ensures that your customers do not get affected through the adequate backup of human resources.

This paper tells you how focusing on people helps prevent attrition.

3. Fast turnaround time

Outsourcing partner works round the clock to manage all your customers simultaneously. Multiple customer order management involves taking orders, attending customer calls, replying to customer emails, and efficiently processing orders by coordinating with different teams. This results in faster order to cash cycle and reduces cost per order.

Web-Based and Traditional Outsourcing is a book that explains the advantages of outsourcing, one of which is a faster turnaround time.

4. World class infrastructure

Outsourcing sales order processing gives you access to world-class infrastructure. Latest hardware, software and other resources are deployed to make sure that sales performance management becomes as efficient as possible.

Read this New York Times article to learn how India became an outsourcing giant.

5. Scalability

Outsourcing is capable of meeting any volatility in customer demand and accordingly scale up the operations. Your outsourcing partner ensures that your customers get seamless and uninterrupted services all the time.

Learn how to scale your business using outsourcing.

6. Efficient customer management

Outsourcing sales ordering ensures that your customers are managed efficiently. Customers can generate order forms, track order information and order history, track stock information to assess inventory levels, and track shipping details.Moreover, they get 24 X 7 online access to sales order management system giving them satisfaction in doing business with you.

This report studies how outsourcing helps customer relationship management.

7. Boost sales and marketing initiatives

Order processing automation allows you to integrate with marketing information systems. This allows for efficient utilization of key transactional data to plan and execute targeted marketing activities. Outsourcing sales and marketing ensures that you are able to generate leads, tap new markets, give quotations, and induce new customers in the business.

Harvard Business Review has some interesting insights about outsourcing marketing.

Outsource sales process automation

New Post has been published on https://transformsolution.com/offshore-social-media-team-for-small-businesses/

What an Offshore Social Media Team Can Do for Small Businesses

Time is a major constraint for a small business owner to dabble in social media. Lack of experience and knowledge about social management tools make it even more challenging to use it successfully. Hiring social media managers and setting up social media team onshore can be expensive for a small business. Moreover, changing customer tastes and social media algorithms demand a proactive social media strategy.

Outsourcing social media marketing to an offshore social media team that understands how to use social media for small business is the best way to go forward. A professional social media team has adequate knowledge and experience to manage various social media platforms. They understand your industry and work with you to grow your business through social media. The following article focuses on the benefits of outsourcing social media management and what an offshore social media team can help you achieve.

1. Build social media strategy

A pro social media team can develop actionable strategy to optimize social media campaign. They can manage social media marketing and posts on multiple platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Every social media platform requires a unique approach to maximize success. Offshore social networking enables you to generate leads and create a right marketing mix of sales-related content as well as educative content to push content marketing.

If your target audience is aged between 18 and 34, you better get on social media soon as 95% of this group is on some social network.

2. Implement social management techniques

When you outsource social media, you get the ability to track data such as complaints and customer queries. Your offshore team follows social media marketing trends, implements tested strategies and social media techniques suitable for your business. Offshore social media team also maintains blogs and other website content if you want them to. Targeting influencers for content and endorsement is an active social management technique. Above all, they follow ethical practices, and are accountable and honest for what they post.

More than 70% of customers who have had a good experience with a business will come back for more, or recommend that business to others.

3. Automate social media

SMB social media teams use marketing automation tools to automate social media posts. They build a detailed posting plan. They decide post frequency and content of the post. They use various tools to collect and store data that can be used for posting in future. Tools like HootSuite and Buffer are used to schedule posts and manage all your social media accounts to enhance social media success.

This HubSpot article teaches you when to post that Facebook post or tweet, so that you communicate with your audience more efficiently.

4. Track competitors

Tracking what your competitors are up to is part of social media outsourcing for small business. Social media team carries out competitor analysis for different platforms to understand who your competitors are. It is essential to analyze what strategies worked for your competitors. What you can learn from their mistakes is equally important to gain an edge over them. It gives you a better understanding of your USPs in contrast to your competitors so that you can maximize social media engagement.

5. Social media advertising

Social media advertising has become a big thing among small businesses to expand sales and followings. Social media ads give you an opportunity to cut through the noise and target new as well as existing customers. Offshore social media team has adequate social advertising experience. They plan ad spend and decide what social media platforms are right to advertise to generate higher ROI. They also implement A/B testing to find out what ads work for your business and strike a chord with your target audience.

It is estimated that social media spending in the US alone is expected to increase to $17.34 billion in 2019.

6. Research and content development

Research and content development is one of the primary reasons to outsource social media. Social media for business necessitates research on your industry and devise a suitable social media plan. Social media team has an aptitude for writing for your target audience. They create well-researched and relevant content for platforms used by your target audience. They make sure that brand messaging is consistent across all platforms.

Visual content is shared 40 times more than other kinds of social media content. Surely, you do not have time to create infographics, Instagram posts, etc, all of which an offshore social media company can do for you.

7. Bring in specialized skills

When you outsource social media marketing, you get access to specialized skill sets available offshore. Besides content development, social media team is adept at content curation, audience development, SEO optimization, and using Google AdWords. They understand visual appeal of content and use creative design skills to design infographics, explainer videos, and other graphic content. Posts are based on what action you want your customers to take. Accordingly, call to action button and links to other social media handles are embedded in the post to enhance social media success.

8. Social media analytics

Social media analytics is necessary to improve social media presence for business. Your offshore social media team studies various metrics like top posts, time of engagement, keywords, type of post, post length etc. It uses KPIs to measure success and ensure that your social media campaign is aligned to your digital marketing strategy. Analyzing strength and weakness of your social media pages, assessment of Facebook page performance and Twitter activity enables you to optimize social media strategy.

9. Social customer service

With customers turning to social media to look for real-time help, make complaints, and ask questions, social media is now seen as a cost-effective customer service platform and forms part of multichannel support. Social media allows businesses to listen to what customers have to say and assess level of customer satisfaction.

It is estimated that 67% customers use social media networks like Twitter and Facebook to seek resolution for issues.

10. Ensure appropriateness of communication

Social media team keeps track of customer interactions and frequently solicits customer feedback to improve customer service. Depending on customer queries, they use appropriate links to direct them to your e-store, website, blog or a different social media post. Moreover, they can determine when to use other channels like live chat, email, phone support to resolve customer query.

Around 50 million SMBs now use Facebook Pages to connect with their customers.

Outsource social media for business growth

Always remember that it is easy to get excited and think that you will do it all alone. However, social media gets mundane and even stressful for a small business owner who has many other things to do. Outsourcing social media to offshore agencies is not only a wise decision but also essential for your survival.

New Post has been published on https://transformsolution.com/10-benefits-of-outsourcing-back-office-duties-for-smbs/

10 Benefits of Outsourcing Back Office Duties for SMBs

While outsourcing back office duties have been in vogue for a long time, and this probably was how the outsourcing era began in the early 1990s, things have changed a lot now. Outsourcing back office functions is now a necessity even for smaller businesses. What started as a privilege that only larger enterprises could afford, the availability of a variety of offshoring admin teams in countries such as India has helped many SMBs to meet small business back office requirements. Choosing to outsource admin support has helped businesses to cut costs and focus on core business activities. In this article, let us take a look at 10 of the most important benefits that SMBs derive from outsourcing back office duties.

1. Reduce costs

While this is a no-brainer, one of the biggest advantages of outsourcing is, it helps reduce costs – all kinds of costs. Firstly, it helps you reduce your operational expenditure. Secondly, it helps reduce staff expenditure as well. Usually, a business has to spend a lot of its operational budget on overheads, infrastructure, skilled labor, etc. All this can be reduced when back office duties are outsourced to an offshore back office team. Training staff to take up ad-hoc projects is a waste of valuable resources, and can significantly affect staff expenditure. Outsourcing ad-hoc back-office projects to an external team help save a lot of money.

A florist in Nevada could no longer afford to hire his receptionist, who also ensured deliveries were processed quickly. Outsourcing his delivery processing and customer care to an agency in India, the florist could quickly scale his business, and hire his receptionist back after 6 months, who was found to be without a job even after several months, owing to the economic crisis in the USA.

This Deloitte survey found that more than 59% of companies interviewed used outsourcing as a primary cost-cutting tool.

2. Focus on core business activities

Admin support offshoring ensures that smaller businesses can focus on growing their fledgling business by delegating non-core functions to an offshore back office team. Not only does this cut costs, but also helps save time and make available valuable resources that can be invested in focusing on core competencies.

A supermarket based in New York just couldn’t find the time to improve its shopping experience, because its employees were busy handling the ERP, and making sure inventories were cleared and replenished. Outsourcing back office functions helped the supermarket to focus on making shopping memorable for its customers by sprucing up interiors, training staff, and making aisles accessible.

This article lists advantages of outsourcing back office functions to an external vendor.

3. Gain access to specialized talent

Back office outsourcing companies specialize in providing admin support to small businesses that do not want to have an in-house admin support team. Such an offshore back office team will have specialized talent when it comes to admin functions, which a small or medium-sized business may not have. It is also not necessary to maintain a full-fledged in-house team of talented back office professionals when they can be hired on demand. In other words, hiring specialized talent had never been this easy.

No matter how hard they tried, a small software agency in Boca Raton, Florida, could not find a Ruby specialist within their budget to fix a buggy website. Hiring someone full time was out of the question, especially for a project that lasted hardly 2 weeks. Their solution came in the form of an offshore agency in Gujarat, India.

This article explains the talent crunch that the world is experiencing now.

4. Gain access to expensive infrastructure

Admin support is more about cloud infrastructure, servers, and expensive infrastructure more than anything else. It is not possible for companies to provide excellent business services without having access to storage or server facilities on a 24/7 basis. It is also not possible for every business to be able to make such infrastructural investments. Back office outsourcing companies provide access to expensive infrastructure, which smaller companies simply cannot afford.

Take a look at how much the world is set to spend by 2026 on infrastructure services.

5. Market better across various platforms

SMBs often sacrifice crucial marketing campaigns simply because they do not have an adequate budget to invest in a sales or marketing strategy. They often ignore important brand building exercises, settle down with cheap or sub-standard logo and stationery, and often spend less on web development, resulting in a less-than-professional image. Outsourcing back office functions help reduce operational costs which can be invested in brand-building and marketing.

Sally, who offers Spanish language courses to children, didn’t have a uniform brand across channels. She risked appearing like a novice. Getting her stationary designed offshore and making sure that all branding was uniform, she saw her business boost immediately.

Take a look at the pros and cons of outsourcing your own brand.

6. Increase ad spend

Money that is saved with the help of outsourcing should be spent very wisely. Advertising is one of the most important methods to generate leads and gain new clients and customers. By choosing to outsource admin support, SMBs reduce overhead costs and operational expenditure, which can be diverted towards ad spend. After all, PPC and digital advertising are known to bring in large amounts of business to small businesses.

Take a look at the American advertising expenditure (ad spend) until 2021.

7. Reduce risks

An important advantage of outsourcing to an offshore back office team is that you will be able to mitigate risks and sometimes even share those risks with your offshore teams. Server downtime, delays in completion of projects, and other risks can be avoided when you outsource back-office functions to an offshore team. Risk mitigation is one of the primary benefits of outsourcing, and that’s a benefit that no SMB can choose to ignore.

Worried about the risks of outsourcing, rather than how it reduces your overall risks? Take a look at this presentation.

8. Enhance scalability of business

Smaller businesses often have difficulties in completing projects, even if their business is doing well. When non-core functions are outsourced to an offshore back office team, a business can easily focus on scaling their projects and completing them in time. This helps in growing their business further, instead of feeling limited by their capacities and capabilities. Several businesses often cite scalability as the primary reason why they outsource admin tasks to offshore teams.

Learn how to leverage outsourcing to scale your company.

9. Flexible business models

Back office outsourcing companies offer flexible business models to suit every small business requirement. You can choose to have a dedicated team working at your disposal, or work on a subscription model. You can also choose to customize how you want the relationship with your offshore team to be. Flexibility is one of the biggest advantages of modern outsourcing, and smaller businesses are not looking back anymore.

This article lists 7 back office outsourcing advantages.

10. Grow your business quickly

Small businesses often do not have the resources or the talent to engage in multiple business processes. Whether it is about accounting, doing research, or simply attending to customer support, smaller businesses simply do not have the luxury to do too many things at once. When they try to do everything themselves, they run the risk of spreading themselves too thin and not focusing on their core functions. Outsourcing helps small businesses to focus on their core business functions and invest in marketing so that they can quickly scale and grow.

Here is an article that accurately shows you how back-office outsourcing can help you grow your small business.

Surviving competition and thriving in a fierce market

New Post has been published on https://transformsolution.com/10-ways-american-businesses-benefit-from-offshoring/

10 Ways American Businesses Can Benefit From Offshoring

Outsourcing and offshoring crucial business processes is a strategic move undertaken by many businesses. Offshoring data warehouse, data security, and data entry make a lot of business sense not just from an economical point of view, but reaping a host of other benefits of offshoring like talent pool, infrastructure, and technology. Find out how data offshoring benefits your business and what you stand to gain from IT outsourcing companies.

1. Focus on core competencies

Offshoring data entry frees up significant amount of time for your core business activities and makes for a good competitive strategy. It allows you to focus only on strategic issues and developmental activities. You don’t need to hire data managers, administer them, or rent office space to keep them.

When you outsource data entry, all your data management requirements are managed by data entry companies expert in handling data entry, scanning, processing, and indexing your data. Your data is always in good shape and accessible to you whenever you need it.

57% of respondents in a Deloitte survey said they use offshoring so that they can focus on their core business.

2. Access to world-class talent

IT outsourcing companies are very particular about what talent they hire. Data offshoring gives you access to a pool of world-class talent who is capable of handling all kinds of data. Highly skilled and experienced data entry operators know how to work productively and efficiently utilize both offline and online data entry solutions.

Data entry companies are proficient in data research and can comprehend and arrange large data sets so that information retrieval is never a problem. And you don’t have to worry about talent management when you have a trustworthy offshore partner. Nonetheless, here are some great ideas to energize your outsourced workplace.

28% of survey respondents revealed that they chose to outsource in order to access intellectual capital.

3. Leverage difference in time zone

One of the noteworthy benefits of offshoring is the difference in time zone between America and India. When you outsource data entry to India, you get an ability to work round the clock and serve your customers non-stop. The moment your employees wind up for the day, your work is instantly carried forward to an offshore company in India. So that when you return to your office the next day, there is an impressive amount of work already completed for you to review. Thus, you save a day and your project moves ahead with lightning speed.

4. Outsource your primary and secondary research

Primary and secondary research is fundamental to ensure that your marketing and strategic decisions are aligned with customer requirements. Outsourcing primary and secondary research services like business market research, trend analysis, and competitive business analysis help you gain first-hand market insights cost effectively.

Qualitative and quantitative research is applied to accomplish your business goals. Various means of research are employed in conducting telephonic interviews of top management executives, using online surveys and questionnaires to gather information from professionals to ensure your industry objectives are achieved effortlessly.

17% of businesses felt offshoring drives broader transformational change.

5. Financial savings

Data offshoring enables you to take advantage of global labor arbitrage phenomenon. Offshoring data services to India enable you to pay less for skilled labor, payroll taxes, employee benefits and overtime wages. Because the employees are hired by an offshore company, the onus of employee liability factors like health insurance, employee leaves, etc is not on you. Moreover, your CapEx (capital expenditure) is significantly reduced because you don’t need to invest in office space or buy equipments. Therefore, data offshoring is a smart business decision to cut down operational costs.

59% of respondents said they outsource as a cost-cutting tool.

6. Top-notch technology

Rapid technological advancement makes it impossible for any business to keep pace with it. Data offshoring is a wonderful opportunity for your business to gain access to state-of-the-art technology. Whether it is cloud infrastructure, dedicated servers or on-premise solutions, your offshoring partner understands your requirements more than you do. You don’t have to invest in expensive hardware or software. Your storage data is instantly available; you just have to plug and play it.

47% respondents agreed that outsourcing solves their capacity issues.

7. Converting raw data into meaningful data

With various sources of data from multimedia devices, software, applications, and corporate information systems, there is an accumulation of huge amounts of unstructured and structured data. Overwhelmed businesses fail to manage this exploding data load and end up creating silos of unusable information scattered across the organization.

One of the key advantages of offshoring is a conversion of this raw data to meaningful data for detailed analysis. Offshoring companies can easily manage meta-data files and make meta-data descriptions so that you access clean and usable data for reporting and analytics.

8. Minimize risk

Data management is a sensitive task and if you don’t pay sufficient attention to it, you end up losing it, which can prove devastating for your business. Data management woes like data backup, data recovery, data storage, data entry, and data arrangement may take a toll on your day-to-day business activities. Offshoring data operation allows you to mitigate risks associated with data management.

64% of survey participants said that they share security risks with their vendors. Sharing risks is a good strategy to minimize its effects.

9. Make use of pro offshoring laws abroad

Over the years, offshoring dynamics have evolved with the emergence of better laws in the interest of both the parties. Intellectual property rights, data protection laws, legal rights, labor laws, data security, dispute resolution, and simplified taxation have made it easier for businesses based out of America to exercise better control and get a real-time view of their data offshoring operations. With simplified government policies, doing business with emerging economies is a lot easier and beneficial.

20% of respondents felt trade agreements between countries played a role in their decision.

10. Business scalability and flexibility

Offshoring data services allow businesses to take advantage of scalability. Operations which are expensive to handle in-house like data entry, data analytics, data research and development are better off with offshoring businesses. Offshoring companies with latest technology, tools, and talent give you access to key expertise areas for specific data projects that help you absorb cost associated with in-house operations. Depending on your requirements, offshoring partners are flexible enough to upscale or downscale operations.

31% felt offshoring helps them increase client revenue growth, while 29% felt it increases provider revenue growth.

Be wise and outsource data services

New Post has been published on https://transformsolution.com/optimize-catalog-management-10-easy-steps/

How to Optimize Catalog Management in 10 Easy Steps

The global catalog management software market was estimated to grow at 13% CAGR between 2017 and 2021, according to a market research conducted by Technavios analysts. Catalog management ensures that your product data is consistent across all sales channels, helping you deliver an omnichannel experience to your customers. Systematic product catalog optimization leaves enough room for continuous expansion while working with new vendors. These 10 easy steps teach you how to manage your product catalog to spur your e-commerce business.

1. Upload your product sheet according to software guidelines

Challenges like multiple product data formats, incomplete data handed over by suppliers, category-wise mapping of product data, and creating a customer-ready data can make it very difficult for you to manage your e-commerce store. Make sure that your product sheet complies with the e-commerce platform’s software guidelines to ensure that your product data is accurate, consistent, and accessible across all channels.

This whitepaper tells you how to deliver a consistent product view across all channels.

This study conducted by Informatica determines ROI of product data for multichannel commerce.

2. Ensure product tagging to be search-friendly

Product tagging assigns keywords to products so that they are easily searchable within a portal. It automatically suggests associated items and alternate options to customers helping businesses to improve sales. Visible and clickable product tags, using tag clouds and other methods enhance your e-commerce website SEO.

This article throws light on how to improve your SEO with WooCommerce product tags.

3. Write creative and persuasive product descriptions

Unique and compelling product descriptions play a vital role in persuading customers to go ahead and make a purchase. Naturally induced keyword phrases in catalog product descriptions improve your search engine ranking.  Product description field further enables you to add HTML header tags where you can tag and emphasize on particular lines and phrases.

These seven simple steps tell you how to write persuasive product descriptions.

4. Create a master product sheet

The master product sheet contains product data from every location and situation and puts it in one place.  It includes information on all products including images, SKU and UPC, along with relationships and prices of different items on sale on your store. It is an important practice to implement master product sheets along with master data management.

This case study on Oakley, a sport and lifestyle brand, tells you how master data management in e-commerce improves data quality and data governance.

5. Maintain product sheet

Usually, products go through a number of changes. Features may change, prices may get reduced or increased, functionalities may change, and the description may change too. Product sheet changes constantly throughout its product cycle, and thus need to be managed on an ongoing basis.  A well-maintained product sheet provides accurate information about the product, improves customer navigation, and enhances product accessibility by with relevant search keywords while removing obsolete words.

Take a look at these nine essentials when optimizing your product data sheet.

6. Catalog data entry is an ongoing process

Catalog data entry can get complicated with frequent modifications needed in product descriptions, the addition of newer product/product categories, and product images. It also includes catalog data conversion and image editing in a cost-effective and efficient manner.

These are the specific features along with the importance of catalog data entry.

7. Prioritizing specific features for customers

Product pages must be optimized for specific product features that your customers look for while navigating through your store. Addition of new products or categories should not hamper customer experience. While design and development of your e-commerce website will take care of this aspect to a large extent, you will also need to manage your catalog intelligently so that specific features are prioritized in search functions for enhanced accessibility.

This Kissmetrics blog will enlighten you about what customers want in an e-commerce site.

8. Synchronize product inventory

Synchronizing product inventory on different e-commerce channels helps you to position your brand. Product content must be optimized to improve product positioning in search results on multiple channels. As e-commerce platforms are growing at an enormous rate, it might become difficult for you to upload inventory details on all these websites manually. You will need to automate or outsource the process of synchronizing product inventory across channels.

Product data synchronization between e-commerce and ERP systems not only helps you to sell on multiple channels but boosts customer confidence, as your products are available on a number of recognizable platforms.

9. Explore digital marketing techniques

Your products’ attributes and features can be highlighted with novel digital campaigns and engaging product ads. Digital marketing initiatives can indirectly boost product catalog optimization helping you drive up sales. After all, when your display ads are well-written, your catalog finds itself becoming visible too.

Go through these 6 product catalog tips to maximize your Facebook dynamic ads campaign.

10. Integrate catalog management with ERP

Another way to optimize your catalog is to integrate catalog management with your ERP, so that inventory is updated real-time on both frontend and backend. This ensures that orders are placed and processed quickly and promptly. It is possible to integrate catalog management tools with SAP SRM, Oracle Materials Management, and other software programs.

Optimize catalog management to stay ahead

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10 Reasons to Move Your Online Store to Shopify

If you own an e-commerce store, you probably have wondered how you can improve the performance of your online store, and how you can make it easier for your customers to make purchases and return to your website often quickly. The answer to this predicament usually lies in choosing the best e-commerce platform for your needs. While many business owners prefer to use Magento, OpenCart and other e-commerce platforms to host their websites, it makes sense to choose and migrate to Shopify. In this article, let us take a look at some of the reasons why Shopify helps you catapult your business to success quickly.

1. Shopify community is remarkably helpful

It is not possible for every business owner to know how to install and manage an e-commerce platform, and also ensure that it is always optimized to enhance sales. Shopify’s online community is very strong and can be found on its official e-commerce forums, Github, and on Slack as well. These and other online communities help business owners like you to seek advice related to optimizing your online store for increased sales, enhanced SEO, quicker checkouts, etc. in other words, Shopify scores over other e-commerce platforms when it comes to community support that is available.

2. Cloud-hosting reduces your overall expenditure

When compared with Magento, Shopify has the advantage of being available over the cloud by default. This ensures that you have very little to worry about with respect to hosting your website. With great documentation and support, Shopify is the perfect e-commerce hosted solution for business owners of all sizes. Most importantly, as Shopify is cloud-hosted, you will spend only on subscription fees, and never on actual infrastructure or servers, which will be the case of you choose to host your own e-commerce website.

3. Shopify has no hidden costs

When it comes to running an e-commerce store all by yourself, you need to take into account various sources of expenditure such as development charges, server costs, hosting fees, customization expenditure, etc. however, Shopify offers an end-to-end cloud-hosted service that allows you to plugin-and-play your e-commerce store, starting at just $29. If you wish to add more features, or seek further customization, you can choose to upgrade your plan. Otherwise, Shopify fees are transparent and you will not encounter any hidden fees.

4. Ensure security of your store, and that of your customers

If you are worried about security, you should consider Shopify migration because it is SSL and PCI compliant. When your customers see the green lock icon, they will feel reassured to go ahead with completing the checkout process, leading to fewer cart abandonment. This is probably one of the biggest Shopify migration benefits.

5. Shopify is SEO-friendly

If you are considering Shopify migration, you might want to keep in mind that your products’ URL may change. However, SEO will not be affected by Shopify migration and this is one of the advantages of moving to Shopify. Not only do you get to enjoy all the benefits of a Shopify online store, but you also get to retain your search rankings for every product page. If you feel you are unable to fix your SEO issues yourself, there is extensive documentation available, and Shopify community always has answers to all sorts of questions.

6. Access to varied Shopify Apps for every business need

If we were to discuss Shopify vs. Magento, the first thing that would come to our minds is how third-party applications came to Magento a long time ago. However, Magento apps require customizations that a regular businessperson may not be able to implement himself. Shopify apps are carefully selected, and customizing a website using these apps and integrating them as and when required are truly easy.

Check out Forbes’ list of Shopify apps.

7. Helps provide an omnichannel experience to your customers

One of the biggest advantages of moving to Shopify is, you can provide a truly multi-channel experience to your customers. If they wish to shop online, Shopify online store’s responsive interface allows them to do so on any device’s screen. If they wish to visit your store, you can choose Shopify point of Sale (POS) to sell your products and process orders quickly and efficiently. If we consider Shopify vs. OpenCart, such benefits may be very few.

8. Easy to integrate with other programs

It always makes sense to integrate your e-commerce platform with CRM or ERP to automate both backend and frontend functions. Shopify online store can easily be integrated with your ERP or CRM of choice so that your business operations are optimized. It is a well-known fact that integrating ERP, CRM, and store software avoid creating duplicate copies of data.

9. Easy to scale

One of the biggest predicaments that e-commerce store owners face if they are using other online store platforms is the ability to scale. If we consider Shopify vs. Magento or Shopify vs. OpenCart, it becomes clear that Shopify easily wins over the other two when it comes to ease of scalability. Shopify’s cloud-hosted programs require no extra efforts from your side even when your store grows in size in stature. All you need to do is to subscribe to the appropriate plan.

10. Extra features and customization with Shopify Plus

Shopify Plus is perfect for larger e-commerce stores that need more features and customizations. As you grow in size and importance, you will need solutions that are tailor-made for your unique requirements. Shopify Plus is an enterprise-grade e-commerce solution that comes with unlimited bandwidth and immense scope for scalability. All this comes with a fully-cloud hosted subscription plan, in which you will have to do nothing but carry on with your actual business.

Consider Shopify Migration for Operational Ease

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Top 10 Reasons Why Every Online Store Should Conduct Competitor Analysis

Competitor analysis is the process by which you identify your existing and potential competitors, along with their strengths and weaknesses based on a number of parameters. It gives you a better idea of where you stand in the market, and what you can do to improve your position. As new online stores are springing up every day, it is important that you understand and acquaint yourself with your competitors. The following reasons will help you to understand why competitor analysis is important.

1. Helps you understand your market better

Understanding your competition is vital to the growth of your online store. Market research about other e-commerce stores in your domain helps you to track industry price trends, assess the quality of their products, and monitor their services so that you can improve your own. By understanding how they serve their customers, you can also enhance your own customer service and compete with them.

Most businesses use Google Trends and the Google Keyword Planner to develop a successful content marketing strategy. You can use these two tools to check how your competitors are faring with respect to their content and understand what their audience is looking for. In other words, these two tools help you do market research better.

2. Keep track of your competitors’ operations

To be successful in the e-commerce space, you will need to know how your competitors will counter with pricing or online discount strategies. The competitive analysis allows you to keep track of your competitors’ operational information and business models.It also helps you predict how they may react to your online operations so that you can have a contingency plan in place.

In a Harvard Business Review interview, professor Robert Hayes states that studying your competitors’ operations will help you learn and provide you with a competitive edge.

3. Formulate strategies for organizational growth

Feel like you are doing all the work, but your e-store is going nowhere? Comparative market analysis is an important aspect of strategic planning and scaling of business. Competitor analysis helps you to study other e-commerce success stories as case studies, and implement their strategies where applicable for your own organizational growth.

A SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis of your competitors helps formulate better strategies for your e-commerce success. This scholarly paper helps you get acquainted with e-commerce SWOT analyses.

4. Improve market share

Want to gobble down your competitors’ market share?Competitive intelligence helps you to undertake corrective measures before you make the same mistakes that your competitors do. There are a number of software tools that help in gaining access to competitive intelligence so that you can improve your market share. Use these tools to learn things about your competitors that they probably wouldn’t reveal to you over their dead bodies.

This Kissmetrics article lists 37 tools to help you gain competitive intelligence (CI).

5. Plan diversification and expansion

You can diversify either by modifying existing products or by adding new products to the online store. However, it is capital intensive and you cannot execute it without proper planning. Competitor analysis helps you diversify your product portfolio by studying expansion plans of your competitors. Why do your homework when your competitors have already done it?

6. Analyzing past and present strategies of competitors

Why research afresh when you can learn from your competitors? Analyzing past and present strategies of competitors helps you to observe their growth trajectory and how it impacts your business. It even helps you to pinpoint where they faltered so that you can learn from their mistakes. The purpose of competitor analysis is to save time and expenses so that you can learn from what your competitors have gained or lost through their strategies.

This Forbes article is great to understand what you can learn from your competitors.

7. Understanding competitive advantages and disadvantages of competitors

When it comes to other online stores, what meets your eye may not be the real story. You need to look beyond aspects such as fundamentals of price, customer service and location. Use competitive analysis to understand your competitors’ strengths such as financial resources, superior talent, and operational efficiency. Similarly, you can use competitive disadvantages that other online stores may have, to your advantage, if you are aware of them at the right time.

Check out this informative article to learn how to combine SWOT analysis with competitor analysis.

8. Developing barriers to prevent competitors from entering your market

You already rule the online market space in your area and you know it?Great, now stop others from eating out your success.Competitor analysis helps you establish barriers for your competitors in a market where you already dominate and have a competitive edge. Use defensive marketing strategies to retain existing market share through extensive distribution and aggressive marketing strategies, all with the help of competitive intelligence you gain.

This chapter by John Roberts is a great resource on defensive marketing strategies.

9. Exploiting weaknesses in product development cycle

A good competitive analysis example is when you identify the weaknesses in your competitors’ products or services. Even a great product or service may have its weaknesses, and a good competitive intelligence strategy helps you understand all the weaknesses that your rival e-commerce store’s latest product may have. Get to know those weaknesses, and make something better.

10. Play the advertising game better

One of the key advantages of competitor analysis is, you always get to play the spy. You can start with tracking your competitors’ keywords, and how you can develop a concurrent content marketing strategy to enhance your own SEO. Competitive PPC analysis helps you to understand how your competitors’ display or paid campaigns are doing, allowing you to learn a lot before spending on ad campaigns yourself.

There are many emerging tools to implement competitor analysis such as Kompyte and Similar Web, which help you to understand what your competitors are up to in general. Backlink tools such as Monitor Backlinks and Open Link Profiler are emerging as popular tools as well. For a great list of emerging competitor analysis tools for the year 2018, take a look at this well-researched article published by Brand Watch.

How can you implement competitor analysis more efficiently?

As you can see, competitive analysis has a number of implications for businesses to succeed and compete with other businesses. After all, the main purpose of the competitive analysis is to gain an understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats when compared with your competitors in a number of areas. However, it is painstaking, cumbersome, and takes a lot of time and resources if you do it alone.