When you run an eCommerce business, you learn that the more efficient your business runs, the more profitable it becomes. Inefficiencies drive down profits because you are wasting time, money, and resources on your day-to-day operations. Learning to be more efficient will drive down your operating costs, which will increase your profits without increasing sales or services. However, it is critical to focus on the big picture and long-term costs because sometimes spending more in one area will decrease costs in another area, so you need to be open to seeing how that works. Here are five tips to help you improve the efficiency of your eCommerce business.
1. Maximize your online exposure.
Online presence is the foundation of any eCommerce business. As an online business owner, you have to make sure your potential customers are brought to your site when looking for products and services that you sell. Business owners accomplish this through search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is the foundation of all digital marketing, including web content, social media, and email marketing.
First, you must identify your keywords or keyword phrases. These are the words and phrases that people are most likely to use in search engines when looking for products and services similar to what you are offering. Once you have keywords and phrases, you work them into your content and monitor their progress. You make adjustments to your keywords as you see which ones get the greatest response. There needs to be consistency in your content creation and keyword usage across all platforms.
To get the most out of your SEO, it is best to utilize the services of companies like Peaks Digital Marketing, which offer SEO in Denver, Colorado, but have clients all over the country. Working with an SEO marketing company is highly efficient because they’re already aware of SEO’s best practices and changing trends. They have established and workable strategies that can be seamlessly applied to your business. A digital marketing company will do the keyword research for you and analyze what keywords or phrases will work best for you and why.
They are accustomed to working with small business owners and work to help you grow a profitable business. It is often more efficient for large companies to create an internal digital marketing team, so digital marketing companies are more inclined to work with small business owners on social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing, market research, and even web design. You can speak with an SEO consultant to learn more about services.
2. Manage your business on the go
When you are looking to improve your eCommerce business’s efficiency, you need to examine how and when you work. The goal is to work smarter, not harder. One strategy is to work on the go, so you can address problems when they arise instead of waiting until the next workday or trying to schedule your life around your work. You can use your iPhone to run a business with the help of multiple apps and options.
There is no reason to limit either your life or your business growth. For many entrepreneurs, the ultimate goal is to grow a business that will allow you to live the life you always wanted. If you automate parts of your business and set things up to operate on the go, you don’t have to sacrifice your business or personal life. With hard work and an established workflow, there is no reason you should be chained to a desk. When you listen to successful entrepreneurs talk about how to run a profitable company, you’ll see that they were always connected. They always had their finger on the pulse of their operation regardless of what they were doing.
3. Keep it casual
Making your employees feel comfortable and appreciated will increase company loyalty and efficiency as your employees will appreciate their jobs and you as their employer. They will want to work hard towards the company’s goals and mission to maintain employment they enjoy and benefit the company overall. There are many small things you can do to make your employees feel appreciated and be more productive.
For example, you can allow them to dress casually at the office. Stretch capris, slacks, comfortable tops, or sweaters are better than a “professional” dress and will make your employees more comfortable. It will also possibly eliminate the need for them to buy new clothes for the job, which will be appreciated. You can offer flexible scheduling, so your employees can adjust their work schedules to accommodate their personal life within reason. As long as your employees are working effectively as a team and meeting their work goals, it shouldn’t matter exactly when they are working or from where.
4. Focus on your goals
Creating SMART goals is vital to running an efficient business. If your employees don’t know exactly what their goals are and are expected to accomplish them, you will have no way of measuring their efficiency. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Relevant, and Time-based. Company goals need to be specific with a clear purpose, they need to be measurable to determine efficiency and progress, and they need to have a clear deadline to be accomplished.
Once you’ve established clear goals, you need to assign them to the appropriate staff and provide them with a deadline. For large goals, you may need to break it down into smaller goals with multiple deadlines. Each goal needs to be specific and clear to your employees. You will also need to communicate clearly with staff how the progress of the goals will be measured. Frequent staff meetings and updates will allow you to monitor the progress of all goals and intervene when needed. Beyond that, once you assign goals, you need to trust your team members to follow through with their tasks.
A highly efficient team can run smoothly individually and together. They coordinate their talents and areas of expertise for the greater good of the organization. When you have team members who are frequently not pulling their weight, you need to replace them for the whole company’s health. Hard-working employees tend to grow resentful when they see others not working hard but getting the same employment benefits.
5. Know when to outsource
Your time is valuable, so there will be plenty of tasks that you may be perfectly capable of doing on your own or learning on your own. However, you need to decide if your time is better spent on other tasks. For example, when addressing your SEO needs, is it more efficient to hire a professional to handle your SEO than to learn all the best practices and take the time out of your schedule each day to ensure everything is done as needed. Outsourcing SEO services will be a business expense, but when you consider the amount of time you would have to commit to the same task, you will be saving money in the long run. This is one clear example of when spending more money in one area will make you more efficient in others.
SEO, web design, and digital marketing are solid examples of when outsourcing is beneficial because they are business operations that many new small business owners see as things they can do themselves to save money. However, the stress and aggregation of learning about content development, google analytics, local search engine optimization, and brand awareness can be exhausting. You may be missing out if you are not doing it at a professional level. Working with an SEO specialist working for an experienced digital marketing agency to create and launch your SEO campaign will greatly increase your company’s efficiency.
