Today, many small business owners are experimenting with different tools and strategies in the hopes of increasing their revenue and overall success. Modern business technology gives small businesses the opportunity to develop low-cost, enterprise-quality products and services.
Technology has changed the way we do business. Social media and e-commerce are engaging customers in new ways, but staying updated on the latest trends is important for staying relevant as an entrepreneur.
Here’s a quick look at some of the trends that are prevalent and upcoming, allowing your small business to achieve exponential growth.
Businesses are increasingly taking advantage of mobile technology.
Although some small business owners may be hesitant to use mobile solutions due to the costs associated with them, research has shown that at least 60 percent of small businesses do consider mobile solutions as a medium to succeed. By utilizing mobile solutions, which have capabilities of customer relationship engagement and back-end business management, today’s busy small business personnel will be able to manage all key aspects of their business.
The benefits of using a mobile solution include:
- It can increase productivity by improving efficiency and eliminating wasted time. For example, if you are in a meeting or on your way to an appointment, you can quickly check up on your sales numbers for the past week or month without having to sit down at your desk and log into your back-end management system.
- It eliminates the need for paper forms that are often lost or misplaced. With a mobile solution, everything is electronic which means there is no risk of losing important information such as receipts or invoices because there is no paper involved at all!
- It saves time by allowing you access any data wherever you are without having to go through multiple steps just because someone forgot something like their password so they
Marketing automation
While marketing budgets are important, small businesses can take an advantage by automating certain important marketing activities. One such tactic is email marketing; according to a survey conducted in 2012 by Constant Contact, 69% of small businesses used email marketing and among those who did not use it, 74% planned to start doing so within the next year.
Email automation tools make it possible for marketers to spend more time creating engaging content and less on the ‘’grunt work’’ of sending, distributing, and tracking emails. Marketing automation extends these benefits to the rest of your marketing program.
Email automation tools have been around since the early 2000s and they have continued to evolve over time. Today, they make it possible for marketers to automate email campaigns by setting rules based on a number of criteria such as user behavior or engagement levels.
In the world of marketing automation, a lead is a potential customer who has taken some action that indicates they might be interested in a product or service. The most common lead qualification actions are filling out a form on your website or signing up for an email newsletter. When you receive a lead, it’s important to follow up with them immediately so that they don’t forget about you. This is where automated messages come into play!
Automated messages are sent by email marketing software after someone fills out your form or signs up for your email newsletter. They can contain anything from links to resources about products and services similar to yours to personalized offers based on information provided by the lead during their registration process. Automated emails are an effective way to keep leads engaged while they’re waiting for their next interaction with sales team member who will follow-up with them personally over phone or email in order to close sale faster!
It’s easy to see why small businesses are adopting marketing automation tools in droves – they save time and money while helping you grow your business.
Deep Dive into Big Data
Big data is not just for big businesses with large budgets. Nowadays, small businesses can also reap the benefits of the massive amounts of online and offline information to make wise decisions and grow their businesses. Moreover, there are plenty of free tools that help you make sense of the data and are simple to use for anyone. Compared to big scale enterprises, small businesses have the advantage of agility, allowing them to derive data-driven insights with speed and efficiency. So it’s never too soon for you being a small business to start thinking big.
The first step towards using big data in your business is by figuring out what kind of data you need to collect and how much time you need to spend on collecting it. You also need to define what kind of questions or problems you want answers from your collected data sets. After all these things are done, then comes the next step which is extracting insights from this collected data using various tools available in market like Google Analytics or Tableau etc.
The tools are easy to use and don’t require any technical knowledge from your side. They allow you to get started immediately without spending money on setting up a database or hiring an expensive team of analysts who might not even be able to provide you with actionable insights in time. You can set up dashboards by yourself without having any knowledge about SQL queries or programming languages like Python or R. The best part is that these dashboards are available 24/7 so you won’t miss any important data which could affect your business outcome significantly.
Customer relationship management goes digital
Effective customer communication is essential to the survival of any business. A comprehensive Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system offers enhanced service to customers through a single location for all of their data, enabling efficient handling and interaction with them.
A CRM system is a software solution that manages your customer interactions and allows you to capture data at every point in the relationship. It also helps you to identify new opportunities and manage existing ones more efficiently.
The customer relationship management market has grown significantly over the past decade. This growth is being driven by several factors, including:
- The increasing use of digital channels and social media by consumers;
- The rising demand for products and services from organizations;
- Advances in technology that have made it easier for companies to collect customer information;
- Increased competition within industries, which means companies need better tools than ever before to win over customers;
- More businesses are now turning toward mobile apps as well as websites in order to reach out to customers on a wider scale.