A proper digital marketing strategy used by top digital marketing agencies is one of the key elements if you want to run a successful online business. Expecting customers to stumble upon your website out of nowhere is a far-fetched idea, and it does not happen.

Most entrepreneurs who have been working in ecommerce or have been running a different kind of online business will tell you that they are constantly looking for new marketing opportunities.

But how do you know if it is worth investing in a marketing idea? Well, some methods are known to be quite effective, so let’s see what makes them stand out from the rest.

The Importance of Brand Awareness

Raising brand awareness may not seem like a direct way to improve sales, but it is a great investment for the future if you want to build a sustainable business. The more people recognize your logo, slogan, or even the color palette, the more you should expect to gain as a business.

What are some ways to raise brand awareness? Well, you could shift your focus toward improving customer service. Someone who has an excellent experience with your business is likely to share it with their friends and family.

Offering complimentary gifts is also a good option. You can create personalized merchandise for free with the intent to include it in your orders. Products like mugs, t-shirts, or calendars are some examples. 

Responsive Web Design

Another suggestion that may not seem too obvious is a responsive website design. Besides good loading speed and uptime, you need website pages that are mobile-friendly. After all, mobile ecommerce revenue accounted for 50% of total U.S. ecommerce revenue in 2018, and the number has not stopped growing since then. 

Aspiring brands need to make sure that their websites are accessible for smartphone and tablet users. Otherwise, they risk losing many potential customers. 

Besides a mobile-friendly website, you could also consider hiring an app developer. Since so many people use Android and iOS, an app for these operating systems would also push a brand toward attracting more customers.

Social Media and Influencer Marketing

It is no secret that plenty of brands rely on social media and influencer marketing to make their advertising efforts worthwhile. 

For social media, you have platforms like Facebook and Instagram where it is not that difficult to create highly engaging content. Contests and giveaways are a good example. If you make an announcement about giving something for free, people will be happy to like and share your post if it means participating in a contest. After all, people love free stuff.

Influencers are also a worthy investment, even if you are on a tight budget. There is a good reason why celebrities are making a lot of money by promoting goods and services. 

When you follow someone on social media, it is because you admire that person or believe that they have the right takes when it comes to various topics. And the words of someone like that are worth more than a random company that is bombarding you with ads, right?

So when an influencer recommends you to get something, or you see them wearing clothes or accessories that look good, it piques your interest. 

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization should be one of the cornerstones for online businesses. Organic traffic is valuable because it comes from search engines after website visitors enter relevant keywords. That is, if your pages are properly optimized.

It helps when you have multiple website traffic sources. However, if you are looking to focus on one in particular, then SEO should be it. 

Keep in mind, though, that ranking for competitive keywords is tough, and some of the best experts spend months to reach desirable positions.

On the other hand, if you manage to overtake the competition and reach the top pages of Google and other search engines, you can expect to have a constant influx of new customers. At the same time, you will also need to work hard to maintain that position because the competition below you will try to do their best to get ahead of you.

Email Marketing

Collecting an email list from the very start is a good piece of advice. Once your website is up and running, you should incentivize people to subscribe to your newsletter or have them submit their email info in return for a discount or free shipping on their next order.

Having an email list means direct access to your customers. You can send them reminders about the products they have left in the shopping cart, announce new deals, and share behind-the-scenes stuff. In other words, you need to help them remember your brand.

Blasting customer inboxes with promotional emails may work in some cases, but if you take things too far, it will not be too long before most of the people who have subscribed will unlist you or redirect your emails to a spam folder. Therefore, if you are planning to invest in email marketing, do not go overboard with spamming advertising emails.

All of us want to run a successful business but most of us even don’t know the actual worth of our own business. You can’t take things ahead in a positive and effective way if you are unaware of the value of your company. Business Valuation is the process of measuring and analyzing the value of any organization or business. There are many business valuation experts working in the market offering valuation services for startups and for well-established businesses as well.

There might be different approaches to perform business valuation but there are three business appraisal methods. We’ll go through all those methods to find out how professionals do work on measuring the value of any business or an organization. So, what are we waiting for? Let’s go down and have a look at some business valuation methods.

Three Business Appraisal Methods

Business valuation is very important for every business because this process gives you all information you need to know about your business. Getting deep information about your business would help you in many things to take your business in a good flow.

1- Asset-Oriented Valuation

As name telling itself, asset-based valuation is all about finding the worth of any business or an organization depending on the company’s assets. A business evaluation expert will go through all of the company’s records and details to find out the worth of the company’s assets. Getting familiar with the company’s assets will let you know the actual worth of your business. It would even help you in selling your business at a good price if you know your business worth.

2- Market-based Appraisal Method

The market plays a very important role in the success or failure of any business. In this specific approach, any business valuation expert would analyze and calculate your company’s worth based on market location, area, competitors, and flow of customers in the market as well. Knowing about your business’s market value is important for every entrepreneur.

3-  ROI

ROI means Return on Investment, this approach of business valuation will find out that when will investors get profit against the investment they’ve made into your business. Convincing and giving confidence to investors is very important so that this method will find out the estimated time of return on investment for investors.

The working approach might vary but the main purpose of business valuation is all about finding the actual worth of your business. So, work with any well-reputed company and choose any business valuation services package and get to know your business more than ever.

Conclusion

As an overall summary, we can say that business valuation is very important for every single person who is either running a startup or any well-established business. We’ve discussed three main business appraisal methods and discussed their role for the business. We came to know that the asset-based valuation method finds out the worth of all assets of a company. On the other hand, they evaluate a company based on the market. In the end, we would recommend you to get business valuation services for your business and do business with more confidence like never before.

Being an HR is not easy. Human resource management is certainly one of the most crucial aspects of any organization. It is the human resource managers that help organizations build dream teams, create a work culture that improves employee retention, and resolve organizational disputes among many. 

Human resource managers manage the ‘human part’ of every organization. The human workforce is what can make or break your organization. The more happy and enthusiastic your employees are about taking your organization towards success, the better it will be for you. 

If your employees are finding it difficult to get up and go to work every day, they will not be giving their hundred percent. And that can definitely be a challenge. 

HR managers have a lot on their plate. From handling recruitment, seamless onboarding to managing payrolls and employee happiness, they are never seen idle. This can also often get overwhelming for many. 

To help make the lives of these managers easy, various digital tools were designed pertaining to different roles of the HRs. These tools help them take out some time to focus on the other important aspects of the business. These tools may include the following: 

• Payroll software 

Payrolls are the most important element for employees. After all, it is the biggest incentive out of all. HR managers can now get the burden off of their shoulders and put their trust in technology to ensure there are no discrepancies or issues when it comes to employee payrolls. 

Payroll software allows HR managers to streamline and centralize the payments in the organization. Not just salaries, HR managers are also not required to keep an eye on calculating the bonuses, incentives, or tax deductions any longer. You can leave it all on the payroll software. 

This tool is perfect to minimize the error ratio and to simplify the payroll method for organizations. 

• Employee engagement tools

Ensuring employee engagement is one of the crucial jobs for an HR manager. Thanks to the technology today, you can track the culture of your organization and actually offer your employees what they need or what they are in search of. 

You can make use of tools like YouEarnedIt. Everyone likes appreciation for the effort they put in. With this tool, you can reward employees for the jobs well done. 

You can also use various digital tools to take feedback from employees anonymously. You can encourage them to share about what you can improve to make it more comfortable for them. 

You can certainly improve employee retention with better employee engagement activities in the organization. The more they are involved, the better they will feel. 

• Recruiting system 

Recruitment is a crucial process. It is also an extremely time-consuming one when it’s done manually. It can take days and weeks on end to write job ads, sharing them on various job portals, going through countless CVs, and responding to a dozen prospects. With this process, you can also lose a good applicant to another organization. 

With digital recruitment tools or efficient use of e-Commerce, you can automate certain steps of the process. These may include sourcing candidates, posting your ads, social recruiting, and more. There are also tools that help you keep a track of candidate progress and schedule interviews for candidates. 

• Web conferencing tools 

If you hire remotely or talk to the candidates in another city, it is best to go beyond audio conferences. It is often recommended to use web conferencing tools to hire new remote employees. 

This is because when you use web conferencing tools, you are able to witness and read the body posture of your candidates. You can figure out how confident the other person is, how well-dressed and groomed he or she is for the interviews. These small things help determine if the person on the other side is serious enough for the job and consequently worth it or not. 

Conclusion 

The job of an HR manager is overcomplicated. There are various roles that HR managers need to undertake from being a recruiter to a trainer. With the help of digital tools, you can not only simplify your management but also make sure that your HRs are spending more time focusing on the important aspects of the organization.

When looking to make improvements to your business, there’s no better source for feedback than your customers. While collecting comments or other data from each one of your customers simply isn’t feasible, your company can collect a large sample of feedback using web forms and surveys.

Some online questionnaires are more effective than others, so read on for tips on how to maximize your survey to get accurate, helpful feedback from the people who keep your company in business.

Offer Incentives

As much as we’d like to think otherwise, very few of your customers are likely to volunteer their time to take a survey regarding their experience with your business without something in it for them — especially unsatisfied customers.

Whether you offer a discount code on their next visit, free product or a chance to be entered into a giveaway for a Hawaii cruise, make sure you’re compensating responders for their time. Your customers’ feedback is a valuable tool for you and your company, and offering a bonus for participants helps them to know you are aware of how valuable their time and comments are to you as a company.

Make a Prompt Request

Customers are more likely to respond to a request for surveys in the 24 hours following their latest visit, so send your request within that window, if not sooner. Make sure to send any invitations as soon as possible, so the customer’s visit is fresh in their minds and relevant comments are most likely to be more detailed and accurate.

If your customers visit your company or its employees in person, ask your employees to make the request face-to-face. Employees should ask if customers would be willing to provide feedback for their performance or the customer’s overall experience using personal, friendly terms. Consumers are far more likely to agree to a survey request when asked in person.

Meet Them Where They Are

If your customers have loyalty accounts or are signed up for email lists, you can connect by meeting them right in their inbox. The easier it is for a customer to access a survey, the more inclined they will be to respond and offer their feedback.

If possible, send a short text message with a brief request, explanation of incentives and a link that will direct them straight to the survey form. When sending email requests, inform them of all relevant information with concise and professional language, using engaging copy and an expression of gratitude for their time.

Keep it Short

Though you’d like as much feedback from your customers, it’s better to keep it brief. Longer surveys risk losing customers because of the time commitment involved. Customers may initiate a longer survey, but quit after only a few minutes, meaning you won’t receive a completed form.

It’s possible to obtain accurate and detailed feedback through a concise, specific survey. Consider using clickable rating systems or boxes to make it easier for participants to complete. Many customers will want to leave comments, but these forms should not be required for completion. Include some optional spots for lengthier notes, but don’t expect long comments from most participants.

As well, be up front with participants about the time commitment. A customer who clicks on a survey knowing they are only going to spend a few minutes responding will feel more satisfied with your company’s transparency than one who feels imposed upon.

Demonstrate Success

Customers, above all, want to know that their feedback will be used to make their experience with your company better. It’s wise to communicate ways you and your business have used past customer feedback to make improvements for present customers. Whether you’ve added a new product, reconsidered a training element for your employees or adjusted your company’s practices, demonstrate how your customers have helped to shape your business.

Make your objective clear in the survey as well. If you’re looking to improve customer service, ask questions that make it clear that their feedback will be used to improve their interactions with your company. If you’re looking to adjust your inventory or add new products, ask what your customers are happy with or what they’d like to see from your company. When customers know they have influence on a company’s operations, they’re more likely to form a personal relationship and remain loyal to your business.

Apply Comments and Concerns

Most importantly, make sure that after collecting feedback, you get to work. If you want to better guarantee responses in any future online surveys, you will need to put in the work today to show that you take customer feedback seriously.

Be sure to listen to and apply the information from both positive and negative comments. These customers are valuable in highlighting where your company is succeeding and where you need to improve. With varied responses, you can better illustrate what the customer experience is like, and make necessary improvements for those who keep your company in business.