14 Tips On Using Technology To Grow Your Business
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Work out which data is key to your business: Understanding early on what your key metrics are and being able to monitor, assess and improve them is important. It is the sort of thing that financiers are very interested in and if you can show them that you are meeting the metrics you set yourself that can be useful.

This can be anything from sales metrics, financial performance, marketing and social media, conversion rates, customer profiles etc. Just using tools like Google Analytics to see user journeys and how to drive them better toward conversion into a sale or contact can be a good start.

Spend money when it saves you time to earn more: If I had the choice of using a free product or something that cost £10 per month but took an hour less to manage then I would go for the £10 option. I can earn more than £10 with that free time. I would also advocate not entering into big upfront payments for software or long-term commitments.

E-commerce is about simplicity for the customer: Make it as easy as possible for your customers to buy and pay. The number of sites that contain too many attempts to up-sell or make the checkout process difficult. If your customer has started the checkout process you want to put as few barriers as possible in front of them that could cause them to leave.

Prototype, prototype, prototype: Rapid prototyping also allows for market testing from the early stages to understand how your product is really received. Prototyping for your own business processes is also possible: not locking yourself into one particular software solution until you know what works for you.

Data is key to effective marketing: For me it’s market analysis, and marketing. Use large public data sources to figure out where (what demographics, countries, etc.) your company has the most potential. This can inform your branding, product design, market positioning, etc. And digital marketing lets you measure just how effective your efforts are. E.g. where do your website visitors come from, and how can that information help you tweak your SEO and ad campaigns to better target potential customers?

Build your presence: To build and grow a business, you need customers. And customers are online in their millions. A fit for purpose internet presence, where prospective and existing customers can find you, engage with you and transact with you is the single most important prerequisite for a business looking to grow quickly.

Go mobile: For SMEs looking to make it big online the answer has to be - MOBILE. We already see that over 40% of internet searches are made from mobile devices. The growth in mobile as a form of searching, browsing and transacting online is phenomenal. It represents the single largest opportunity for SMEs today. Businesses need to make sure their online presence is fit for mobile devices and they can reach clients on any device at any time.

Go global: I am a big fan of going global as early as possible. One cannot and should not rely on local markets if one has a potentially global product.

Plan, test, think and then focus: Don’t trust your instincts, trust your evidence. Be ready to kill bad ideas quickly and respond to new opportunities equally quickly. Build on what works and remember most people are overnight successes after years of hard work.

Target communities online: Trust and awareness is built over time and over a breadth of channels. There is no time like tody to start doing so! Find out where your target market engages digitally and jump in.

Test new markets before launch: I know we’re all supposed to hate Amazon. BUT it’s a jolly useful platform for testing new international markets. With no set-up costs. Just a total pain to set up your product range. But provided your e-commerce team leader doesn’t shoot herself in the process it’s worthwhile. You can test a new market with zero investment.

Hold on to your cash: From having started my own business my number one golden rule is hold on to your cash as long as possible. Most tech and certainly most of the tools you need at a startup stage are free or available at very low cost. Small businesses are being seen as cash cows and are far too willing to hand over their vital capital.

Your website should be live before your business is: In this interconnected, interweb driven world, not having a web presence makes a business appear unprofessional and out of touch. I’d even put a web page up if the business is pre-launch so people can register interest. Buy the domain name variations as soon as you have figured our what your business will be called.

Look bigger than you are: Don’t use your mobile number or home phone number as your business phone number. Make sure your incoming calls are handled professionally and, if you have a phone system, get one that is cloud-based as it will have all the big company features that are easily configurable for a small company price.

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