Business Automation is a hot topic and for good reason. Today’s digital world is transacting 24/7 and your business should reflect this. By automating these five things, you can make your business work harder, even while you sleep, saving you hours in your week. You’ll have more time to focus on the parts of the business you love, like strategy, development, increasing business profits or scaling up, so stop sweating the small stuff.
1. Automate Marketing and Sales
The buzz word in today’s marketing world is inbound, where the emphasis shifts from solely putting your brand in front of customers to encouraging ways for customers to come to you. The myriad of information available online, competition in the market and the fact that shoppers will research a brand before they walk into a store or decide to make a purchase is key; if your brand isn’t ranking in searches or isn’t pulling customers in, you should consider developing your digital presence through content, expertise, and digital marketing. The way to tie it all together is automation, so when a visitor subscribes to your blog or books a consultation, they automatically receive follow-up emails containing valuable information to build brand trust and get more customers.
Increased Sales can be gained through business automation. From instant invoicing to email notifications if a shopper leaves their cart mid-purchase, transaction confirmation and automated shipping should all be ingrained into the basics of your business. HubSpot is just one platform that allows you to automate your workflow from email marketing to effective lead capture and eCommerce. The likes of Hootsuite lets you schedule and automate social media posts and optimise them for the most engagement.
2. Box all Documents up
Store and send information and collaborate in real-time without cluttering up inboxes or spending hours flicking documents back and forth. Dropbox Business or Microsoft OneDrive allows simple collaboration without anyone missing a thing.
3. Automate Payroll and HR Processes
Juggling supplier invoices, payslips, holidays and sick leave can take time. If you have a small business, chances are you are the HR department but thankfully platforms like Xero let you automate these functions from a single system to cut hours of time.
4. Better Manage Passwords with Automation
Business automation requires several digital platforms to succeed. From posting on social media to measuring website performance on Google Analytics and email marketing on MailChimp, a typical day can see you switching from five to 10 different platforms. Each one of those platforms requires a password so you might be juggling as many as 20 or 30 every day. 1password is a handy app that stores all of them securely in one convenient place, which you just need one password to access. Save hours of searching and stress and download it today!
5. Streamline and Automate Your Email responses
Do you find you’re sending the same email over and over? Why not automate emails using Canned Responses. This automation feature lets you pre-type and store standard email replies. When the time comes to respond, you no longer have to find a previous email to copy or start from scratch. Just select the appropriate response and click send. Learn to setup canned responses in Gmail.
Interested to find out more? Bartercard has created a free eBook to help Business Owners become more effective: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Small Business Owners. This eBook is filled with insightful ideas and proactive behaviours to help you move your business forward.
