While the last economic downturn hasn’t been kind to enterprises, startups have flourished in a post-crash market. According to Forbes, there are now over 28 million small businesses in the United States and more than 50 percent of the working population is employed by an SMB. Thanks to the rise of reliable broadband connections, cloud computing and the evolution of Internet standards such as IPv6, more SMBs are choosing the web-based startup route to minimize overhead and get their products to market as quickly as possible. For startup owners, however, managing web portals, e-commerce solutions and social media can eat up valuable time better spent championing their product or reaching out to new customers. Here are four ways to help automate your web-based business processes.
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| Image source: Freepik |
By the Numbers
Your business lives and dies on numbers. How many people are visiting your website, and what are they doing? What do your sales numbers look like? How successful are current marketing campaigns? Couple this with the ability to gather data from virtually any source and it’s easy for any startup to get overwhelmed by 1s and 0s — you need a way to collect, sort and easily display this information without having to go out and mine it yourself. The solution? According to Small Business Trends, it’s worth spending on the right analytics automation software; look for something that provides a “single pane of glass” dashboard that pulls data from multiple sources and lets you see key metrics at a glance.
Get Social
Facebook now claims over 1 billion active users per month, while Bloomberg notes that video- and picture-sharing app “Snapchat” has more than 100 million users who generate over 10 billion video views per day. Tapping this market is a huge boon to SMBs — if you can get potential customers talking about your “story” online or sharing your posts, you’re on the fast track to improved revenue.
The problem? Managing multiple social sites can quickly overtake other business priorities, leaving little time for innovation or promotion. Small Business Computing recommends the use of social automation tools; Hootsuite is a popular option that offers a 30-day trial and automatically pulls data from more than 35 social networks. While email marketing has slipped out of first place, thanks to social sites, it’s still a popular engagement and networking tool. The right email management solution can automatically detect and reject spam, prioritize senders and streamline your marketing efforts.
This, Then That
If you’re running a web-based startup, web design is a top priority — if users can’t quickly access content on your site or find exactly what they’re looking for, they’ll choose a competitor and you lose a sale. The result? Web design and development for startups is key to long-term success, but since most owners aren’t content experts. it’s often difficult to bridge the gap between potential and profit. As noted by Entrepreneur, however, solutions like “if this then that,” often abbreviated IFTTT is “one of the most streamlined automation tools on the Web.” Often used by homeowners, it can also be leveraged to great effect by SMBs; the free tool lets you create “recipes” that automate specific web-based tasks, such as integrating contact info or keeping track of your website’s search engine ranking position (SERP).
Pass on Paper
Last but not least to improve your startup automation? Take a pass on paper. Even web-based businesses often fall into the trap of keeping multiple paper copies of critical records in addition to digital documents, or don’t convert physical old files when making the switch to a more streamlined web presence. By combining all document access into a single, collaborative, cloud-based platform, you’re able to both increase productivity and lower total costs — employees are able to quickly edit or add documents while original versions are kept safe and sound. Plus, by leveraging cloud technology, you’re not on the hook for costly server hardware or the expense of ongoing maintenance. By automating the flow of documents in your organization, such as accounts payable or order processing, you both improve customer satisfaction and reduce time between partner billing and payment.
Web-based solutions empower startups to embrace a global audience and increase their marketing reach. Automation of data collection, social insight, web design and document control meanwhile, can help SMBs own their market niche.
Author bio: As U.S. Chief Operating Officer at Esker, Steve Smith is responsible for all operations in North, South and Central America. Esker is a global leader in business process automation, helping organizations around the world automate various business processes. Through Esker’s variety of software packages, businesses are able to increase their workflow and productivity.
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