Running a small business can be as just hard as running a multinational enterprise. It doesn’t matter how many employees you have or what the sales revenues are—the stress of riding with the weight of an entire company on your back could cripple even the strongest person.
The good news is that, these days, technology has become much more accessible and affordable. It’s no longer reserved for the Big Guys with deep pockets; up-and-coming entrepreneurs can now access the same essential resources to keep up with the competition, without entirely draining their business bank account.
But what are the resources business owners use to succeed? We’ll cover all of the basics in our discussion of the top three services your company needs, no matter its size.
- Marketing Direction
There are two types of companies: those that market in-house, and those that hire outside agencies who specialize in the service. Which one are you? There’s no shame in outsourcing these initiatives. In fact, you might want to consider making the switch to an agency, unless you have a dedicated department staffed with experience team members who know what they’re doing.
Anybody can go out and buy 50 billboards in Los Angeles to spread a company’s name across the city, but by that logic, anybody can pour tens of thousands of dollars down the drain if they also felt like it.
Let the lesson be learned: if you’re looking for a good return on investment (ROI), do not but your ad dollars into the hands of someone who doesn’t know how to deliver data-driven results through digital marketing.
Maybe someone drummed up a catchy jingle used in a radio commercial, or your intern swears by their ability to create social media campaigns, but unless they can speak to the key performance indicators (KPIs) used to track specific goals, then it might be time to rethink their responsibility.
By KPIs, we’re talking about metrics like:
- Online traffic volume
- Customer conversions
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Bounce rate
- Daily impressions
The marketing coordinator at your company should be able to implement tools to track this type of data, but they should also be able to speak to any changes in they see in the trendline. Why did traffic spike? Because a revised meta-description improved Google’s CTR. Bounce rate is taking a turn for the worse? The latest WordPress update causes the site to load more slowly.
This is the type of forward thinking you need. If you don’t have the talent in-house, enlist the services of someone else who does.
- Social Media Management
Let’s circle back to the point about social media. These days, pretty much everyone is on some platform or another, which might lead them to believe that they can run an ad campaign on Facebook or Instagram without a hitch. This can’t be further from the truth.
The accounts created for personal use are structured entirely different than business profiles. Moreover, ad placement, content production, and branding require a nuanced understanding of how a specific platform’s algorithm works, and how it can then be leveraged to increase sales revenues.
No matter who you task with social media management—whether it be an in-house employee or a third-party vendor—you should place emphasis on visually pleasing aesthetics rather than large paragraphs of condensed text. Remember that consistency is key for establishing a brand identity that people can recognize with just a quick glance at their phone.
- Accounting
You might have started off just fine while the company was still in its infancy stages, but as the business grew and more tasks competed for your attention, it’s likely that you found yourself in a catch up bookkeeping conundrum. How are you supposed to manage the company’s finances when you can’t even see your desk beneath heaps of paperwork?
You’re far better off hiring a professional accountant who’s well-versed in the complex tax code. They can help you save money by searching for tax credits and deductions you might not be aware of, but more importantly, they might prevent you from a costly IRS audit that takes a major hit to your bottom line.
Final Thoughts
The 21st century business world is evolving every day, but these services prove to be the common denominator of most successful companies across every industry.