What can smaller companies do to save money
We could sit down and try to convince you that one of the best strategies to save you money is to simply not invest in advertising or to always use free business solutions — but that’s just a quick fix.
After a few weeks of not seeing progress, you’ll start wondering if that really is the only options for your business. What can you do to still have access to those sophisticated tools without going bankrupt? Here are some tips with which you can start that won’t hurt your budget.
Review your goals and distribute your budget wisely
Money, of course, is the number one resource on which a lot of new businesses depend and let’s be honest here — a startup without a positive cash flow simply won’t be able to sustain itself.
That’s why our first tip would be to gather all the team members and write down what your business’ KPIs and primary goals are. You might think that this has nothing to do with the budget, but it really does, here’s why.
Having all of your goals listed in front of you will help you understand how much of your budget you’ll be able to allocate to every one of them. It will prevent you from spending money unnecessarily in some areas that don’t need it and save you some coins at the end of the year.
After having a clear list of those KPIs, choose a percentage of your annual budget that will be use to reach those goals. Your team will then be responsible to create a strategy on what actions they will take to make it happen.
Multiple Payment Options
As you may already know, customers are no longer willing to wait to get their favorite products. In fact, they’re so used to having everything when and how they want it that when they visit a website that doesn’t offer them all the payment options, they don’t even bother on buying the brand’s products or service.
Make sure that your online shop has all payment methods and is fully prepared to give the best user experience. Now, don’t go crazy on adding all of them, just focus on being able to offer the most popular ones and be sure to have the option to add a new one in case your customers need it.
If you’re not sure about which you should use, have a look at a more affordable alternative tool such as Switcher from Swappt. They let you add any provider from anywhere in the world quickly to your e-commerce with a single integration.
A few days ago, we also talked about SEPA Instant Payments and how those times when money transfers would take days to come through are now long gone — nowadays you’re able to do it in less than ten seconds! This means you you’ll be saving money by not paying high transfer taxes and you’ll receive your payments much quicker.
Keep an eye on data reports
William Edwards Deming once said: ‘In God we trust; all others must bring data.’ And we respond with — Amen Sir! In fact, any company looking to grow and expand can simply not succeed without data analysis anymore, mainly because taking the wrong decisions will cost you money.
If you wish to compete against the big players out there, you’ll need to understand how powerful big data can be for your business.
Sure having high traffic, followers, subscribers, and mentions on social media are crucial to your brand, but could you tell us what is your customers really looking for or why some of them aren’t buying your products yet? You see, not understanding your customer’s behavior and every aspect of your e-commerce might lead you to take the wrong decisions. Big Data can be analyzed to obtain ideas that lead to better decisions and strategic business movements.
Along with Big Data comes Business Intelligence. You maybe think that these two concepts are the same, but they’re not. Business Intelligence (BI) is ‘a set of methodologies, processes, architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information used to enable more effective strategic, tactical, and operational insights and decision-making.’ — Forrester Research.
So as you can see, you could have the best Big Data expert on board, but you’d still need someone or something to turn that data into something understandable for you to take the right decisions for your business.
Make sure to build customer trust
If we move away from all the sophisticated tools, we can also bring the importance of building trust and credibility with your customers to grow your revenue.
Online security and privacy have become one of the most sensitive topics spoken by customers these days. It doesn’t matter what page they visit, they always double check to see if it’s secure or not. Users want to feel safe online, and if a website is going to ask for their credit or debit card, it better show some security evidence that it is, otherwise they will run away.
But fraud and online security is not just a concern for users; it’s also a big issue for companies. Recent reports have shown that there’s been an approximate of 23 Billion dollars of fraud losses during 2016 worldwide. As you can tell that is a lot of money, but it turns even scarier when they confirm that most of those payment frauds came for small and medium-size companies.
What can you do about it? First of all, make sure to have everything in place such as:
- SSL Certificate. Does your URL include the HTTPS?
- Check if there’s any similar domain to yours that trick people into purchasing something on their website instead of yours.
- Do you have a Website Privacy Policy link? A website’s privacy policy contains useful information on how you collect user’s data from the site and how it’s used.
Other great options to minimize online frauds and chargebacks are tools such as F.D.S. like the one SWAPPT offers. Enterprises actively need to ensure these transactions are genuine and the only way to succeed is to use a Risk Management and Fraud Prevention Tool that combines Decision Management and Machine Learning systems.
As you see, sometimes money leaks happen when there’s not enough control over some of these areas and when a company isn’t using the proper tools.
If you want to learn more about how your business can improve and grow their revenue, stay tuned because next week we’ll be sharing with some great tips on how you can boost your online sales without spamming your clients.
