Newsletter
September 2021 Newsletter
Automating Your Business in 2021
Business automations can change the way you run your business with increased productivity, reduced admin burden and even an increase in sales. We’ve seen it through Xero where AI automates simple functions such as matching invoices up with money received by your bank account.
Automated responses and other functions can also rapidly upgrade your daily productivity and success – here are some interesting statistics to support this:
- 67% of marketing leaders are utilising automation platforms in one way or another.
- 74% of marketers surveyed agreed that the main reason business owners use automation software is to save time.
- 92% of automation users say they use it to improve their lead generation followed by customer retention and nurturing.*
As a small business, you may be after some simple automation functions. Here are just a few items you can automate to streamline your business today:
Auto Reponses
Whether it be on social media or email, a simple yet effective auto-response allows your customers to feel acknowledged. It also provides your customer with an opportunity to progress their enquiry autonomously. For example, providing a response with a direct line to sales, marketing or accounts.
As many small business owners struggle to manage multiple inboxes, a simple social media auto response can guide a customer to an email address or phone number to progress their enquiry.
The worst thing you can do as a small business is leave a customer unanswered. Avoid this will simple “out of office” emails and social media messaging auto responders.
Learn how to set these up here:
https://www.facebook.com/help/1615627532020480
Send Appointment Reminders
These days clients rely heavily on appointment reminders. These reminder texts can be synced with scheduling software to ensure appointments are confirmed and confirmed again, drastically reducing no-shows, the need to compare calendars and double bookings. This service is not only favoured by the client as they appreciate the reminder, it also reduces admin burden for appointment confirmations over the phone.
Learn more about free SMS software, Click Send, here:
https://www.clicksend.com/au/solutions/reminders/
Lead Funnels
To ensure all staff members are across sales, a project, or anything to do with your business, there are several software platforms available which keeps everyone accountable and on task week in week out. At the click of a button, you can see the latest happening and comments for any task or project. One of the best on the market is Air Table which can be auto populated by an email or manually.
Check out Air Table and its functions here: www.airtable.com
Set up Socials
Do you struggle to squeeze in social posts? Do they lack key components due to “posting on the fly”? By setting aside an hour or a day to work out your social posts and planning them out with focus can make the most of your social strategy. Software such as Sprout Social or Hootsuite allow you to schedule the posting of your social media across all platforms (yes, no more logging in and posting on several platforms) months in advance.
As well as inbuilt reporting, these systems allow you to sit back and let them publish your content with just a bit of planning on your part. Don’t forget your social media auto responders will then guide any leads in the right direction. Easy!
See Hootsuite and Social Sprout for more information on automated social publishing.
www.hootsuite.com www.socialsprout.com
Automating simple yet impactful communications with your clients sets the tone for a positive and professional experience. These services set the intention to be responsive and caring in the way you run business while internal automations bolster your productivity and project success.
Consider automating just one element of your business per month to see how you can streamline your communications both internally and externally.
*Source: https://www.windwardstudios.com/blog/automation-statistics-mega-list