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Grow Your Business Using Cloud Based ServicesThere are many cloud based solutions being offered to small businesses (what is the cloud? see Why all the hype about ‘The Cloud’ ) but how can small businesses utilise these services to help grow their business. I have picked out three areas to highlight how:

 

Online Marketing

 

Online marketing has been around for years right? Yes but so has cloud based services but I won’t get into that now. The problem is many small businesses aren’t doing it correctly, its easy to spend money on marketing but with Google Analytics and CRM lead tracking there is no excuse for not appraising if its cost effective or not. You can spend time and money on the many areas of online marketing, your website, SEO, AdWords, social media, email marketing but before you start identify what you are trying to achieve and how you can measure if its cost effective. For example social media, most companies think they should be on there and for many B to C’s they probably should to some degree but how many actually track the number of leads/sales it generated and compared it to other potential sources. Its not all about show, we want cold hard facts and these are easy to obtain and here’s how.

Google Analytics has developed over the last few years into a powerful product but you just need to start with the basics, how are the visitors interacting with your site. Put tracking on your important goals such as your contact us form. Make sure there is campaign tracking on all your links. This data should form part of your decision making process.

Create landing pages and try split testing. Sometimes your website can be too broad and you need to have a single page with a specific goal which is inline with your marketing campaign i.e. sign up to a newsletter. Rather than getting your web designer involved there are now many services which allow you to easily create landing pages, track their performance and even try split testing. Lessons learnt here can be incorporated into the design of your website.

Implement an email marketing/CRM system to track the performance of your email marketing campaigns. Following up with your existing customer and contacting new customers (B2B) via email is an effective way to generate more sales. Cloud based CRM systems offer a lot of functionality and are often underutilised which brings me nicely onto my next subject.

Sales Pipeline

 

Tracking your sales pipeline from enquiry through to close is as important for a one person sales team through to large teams. There has been massive growth in cloud based CRM systems over the last fews years and there are now many cost effective powerful systems available to small businesses. Leads and enquiries cost time and money to generate and they should be tracked through to the sale and delivery of the product/service. The majority of the providers ensure that leads are automatically added to the system from sources such as your website to save time and reduce errors. Not only do you want to ensure all leads are being dealt with correctly but valuable information can also be fed back to your marketing team or product and pricing strategy. Having a top level view of your sales pipeline is essential and can highlight problems before its too late to react. Added to this the task management functionality and organisational structure these systems allow they should be an essential part of every small business.

Collaboration

 

Remote working is now a real possibility for business given the availability, reliability and speed of the internet. It is therefore no surprise that there is a wide range of cloud based collaboration software available to choose from. Usages range from managing projects with internal office based teams to managing remote teams comprising of full and part time staff. This opens up additional possibilities for business to recruit specialist staff on a part time or interim basis to work from any location.

Opportunities to be Explored

 

Small businesses now have a vast array of tools and resources available to them to help make decisions, manage and grow their business. The businesses which survive and grow will be the ones which take full advantage of what’s on offer.