Monthly Archives: June 2014

6 Ways to Make your Company Website Look Great on a Smartphone

Posted on June 28, 2014

With the rapid increase in the use of Smartphones for online browsing and buying, you need to ensure that your website is optimized for mobiles.  According to a recent survey, over 58% of UK consumers use their smartphones and 19% use tablets to access the internet and go online.  The challenge that companies today face is to make their website perform well on any type of mobile platform – right from the very basic mobile phone to the very sophisticated tablet / smartphone.

To make the mobile web browsing experience seamless, make sure that you know and understand the needs of your customers. Here are six ways that you can use to make your website look great on the smartphone or tablet of your customers:

1. Understand who your customers are

With the wide range of mobile devices in today’s world, understanding who your customers are is a critical factor. You need to be aware about who is using what type of mobile device to access your company website. The mobile section on Google Analytics can give you a complete picture about the type of browsers used to access your site (Explorer, Chrome or Safari). You can also get to know if your customers are visiting your website and then immediately bouncing off.

2. Shift your focus to important things

Find out what content your mobile consumers are looking for or need the most. Make sure that a user does not have to navigate through layers of unnecessary content. This way, you will not be throwing too much of information at your mobile users and slowing down their ability to find out what they want. Get rid of features that take ages to load and always keep in mind constraints like connectivity and bandwidth.

3. Start thinking like your users

Provide your consumers with an easy path to find important information like your contact details. If you own an ecommerce website, make sure that you make it easy for a user to buy products. Limit the amount of stages that a customer has to go through in order to find out what they are looking for. Offering a “click to call” option can make it easy for a user to call up your business and can save them the trouble of jotting down your number. Continue reading →

Who, What, When, Where, Why & How – Answer It All with Market Research!

Posted on June 19, 2014

Have you heard and read a lot about the benefits of using market research for your business, but have still not tried it out?  With market research, your business can get a deeper insight into your market, products, customers, marketing strategies and competitors. By gaining a better understanding of the key areas of your business, you can make the right decisions at the right time and place your company on the road to success.

Market research can give you answers to the puzzling Who, What, Where, When, Why and How questions of meeting the needs of your customers and marketing your brand. Here are 20 such questions that market research can help you answer.

Answer these top 20 questions with market research

  1. Who is currently purchasing your service or product?
  2. What are the lives of your target audience actually like?
  3. Why are other interested customers not buying your product/service?
  4. Who would be interested in purchasing your product/services in the future?
  5. How many interested customers are there?
  6. What are the common trends that are affecting the lives of your target audience at the present?
  7. Where would customers buy your service/product from?
  8. How, where and when would they consume or use your product/service?
  9. Why would a customer buy your product/service? What need are they trying to satisfy?
  10. Who is your current competition?
  11. What image do customers have of your brand versus the brand of your competitors?
  12. What should be the ideal brand image for your business to market?
  13. What do customers think about the different aspects of your service/product? (Packaging, Pricing, Features, Name, Advertising etc)
  14. What improvements can you make to your product/service in order to meet the needs of your customers even better?
  15. What is the most important benefit that you want your brand to offer and why would customers believe this benefit to be true?
  16. How can you effectively communicate the benefits of your product/service to your target audience?
  17. What is the right price to charge for your product/service?
  18. What are some of the other new services/products that your business can offer to customers?
  19. What is your vision for your company and brand?
  20. What is the best roadmap to follow in order to achieve your goals?

Continue reading →

Why your Sales Professionals Should Not Be Setting Appointments?

Posted on June 14, 2014

Recent research has revealed that sales professionals are unable to perform well when they try to generate leads.  The changing business environment of today has intensified this problem, by making several traditional methods of generating sales leads obsolete. So, how does a business prosper in both appointment setting and lead generation? Is there a way out? Yes, the answer is outsourcing. Offshoring appointment setting is an effective solution that your company can use to generate more leads and out beat competitors.

With appointment setting out of your hand, you will find that your sales professionals can focus on sales and on the other core activities of your business. Not only will your company benefit from an increase in sales, but you can also enjoy other advantages like improved performance and an increase in profits.

Sales Professionals Vs Appointment Setters

Do you still feel that your sales professionals should handle appointment setting? Let’s analyze why trained appointment setters score more than sales professionals:

  • Service providers and professionals who exclusively specialize in appointment setting are much more successful at setting appointment with prospective customers, than sales people who are great at creating presentations, negotiating with customers and finally closing the deal
  • Research has revealed that most sales professionals are not comfortable in making cold calls and at times even avoid them. Statistics has proven that appointment setters are more productive and usually make an average of 35 calls per hour, with over 1.5 appointments set within the same time. Hence, outsourcing can only improve your sales and boost the morale of your sales professionals
  • It is a proven fact, that a sales company can maximize their sales force’s productivity by a whopping 100% by simply outsourcing appointment setting. With appointment setting out of the hands of your management, they will no longer have to design or review call benefits. Outsourcing can ease the job of managing your sales staff
  • Service providers who are dedicated to the purpose of appointment setting can successfully target more profitable leads, since they have experience in field of appointment setting. This gives them a better awareness about prospective customers for varied types of businesses. This way, an appointment setting firm can call leads who are interested, without wasting time
  • A specialized appointment setting company can provide you with valuable data that can help you improve your company as a whole. If you want to taste success and make a mark in the current competitive business environment, then appointment setting is very much recommended

Continue reading →

Get a Professional to Balance your Books & Enjoy Bonus Benefits!

Posted on June 7, 2014

Does your small or medium-sized business constantly have to worry about training accountants or balancing your books on time? Do you have to deal with an increase in fraud? Are you unable to make strategic decisions, because of poorly maintained books? Now, put a full stop to such problems, by outsourcing bookkeeping and getting a professional to do the job. With expert accountants overseeing your books, you can gain control over your accounts and benefit from financial intelligence that is fast, actionable, accurate and accessible.

Outsourcing accounting services can enable your company to be more effective and efficient, while helping you to minimize costs. Outsourcing also paves the way for you to focus on your core business activities, while enjoying the benefits of books that are accurate. You can run your business in a better fashion by making informed and strategic financial decisions based on financial data that is accurate.

Accounting services that can be outsourced

You can outsource either a few or all of the following accounting services:

  • Bookkeeping services
  • Payroll processing
  • Financial analysis
  • Accounting services
  • Cash flow management
  • Tax processing
  • Invoice processing
  • QuickBooks accounting
  • Insurance services

Outsource & slash your costs by half!

It’s true! Outsourcing bookkeeping is defiantly much more cost-effective than in-house bookkeeping. Just think about all the costs that you cut down on by outsourcing. You will not have to pay for:

  • Employer payroll taxes
  • Retirement plans
  • Vacation / sick days
  • Worker’s compensation insurance
  • Medical insurance and other benefits
  • Placing classified ads in the newspaper
  • Screening interviews for candidates and then providing training

Continue reading →