Featured article by Rick DelGado, Independent Technology Author
Embracing the latest tech trends is essential for your business’s success. It can streamline your business’s operations, allowing you to produce and sell more products in less time. And failure to take advantage of technology may allow your competitors to gain an edge in your market. If you’re reluctant to adopt new tech trends, you should consider some of the following benefits that it offers.
Reach Mobile Device Users
Using the right technology, you can reach mobile device users with digital marketing campaigns. The Small Business Administration (SBA) explains that more people now access the internet through smartphones, smart wearables, tablets and other mobile devices than through traditional desktop computers. Therefore, neglecting to target these users in your marketing campaigns is a serious mistake that will cost your business sales.
You can reach mobile users by developing a mobile-friendly website. There are three primary mobile-friendly design configurations from which you can choose: dynamically serving HTML, a separate mobile website or a responsive theme. However, Google only recommends the latter because of its high level of cross-compatibility. In addition to using a mobile-friendly design for your business’s website, you can also use online advertising networks to reach mobile users. Facebook Ads, Google AdWords and Bing Ads all support device targeting, meaning you can create ads that only display to mobile device users.
Monitor Performance
Technology also allows you to monitor your business’s performance. Tracking all customer and vendor transactions manually is time consuming and tedious. Whenever you make a sale, you must create a record of it. The right technology, however, can streamline sales tracking while providing insight into your business’s performance in the process. Accounting software, for example, can reveal key performance indicators (KPIs) like cash flow, gross profit margin and inventory turnover rate whereas digital marketing software can reveal the conversion rates, click-through rates and ad impressions of your marketing campaigns.
Automate Payroll
Reports show that businesses spend up to five hours calculating their payroll for each pay period. By automating this process, however, businesses can save time, energy and money while also reducing the risk of human error. Accounting software and human resources software typically support payroll automation. According to the American Payroll Association (APA), automating payroll lowers processing-related expenses by 80 percent, making software products such as these a smart investment.
Foster Customer Relationships
Customers are an invaluable resource for your business. When customers are happy and satisfied with your business, they’ll probably return to make additional purchases in the future. According to a study cited by Business2Community, three-fourths of consumers will spend more money with businesses that provide a positive customer experience than their counterparts that provide a negative experience. You can foster positive, long-lasting customer relationships using the software. Customer relationship management (CRM) software is designed specifically for this purpose. It offers a central hub where you can manage customers’ information and nurture them through the sales funnel. Some CRM software can even automate tasks like email marketing and order confirmations, further streamlining your business’s operations.
Improve Product Quality
You should constantly improve the product or products offered by your business. Otherwise, a competing business may launch a better product for a lower price, thus stealing your customers. Thankfully, technology can help you with this process. You can use marketing software, for example, to identify which products have the strongest demand, or you can use email software to send customers satisfaction surveys. This information can help you create a better product that’s more aligned with the needs of your business’s customers.
Worker Collaboration
Finally, technology allows workers to collaborate on projects so that they accomplish a single, shared goal. There are dozens of cloud-based collaboration apps, some of which include Trello, SharePoint, Google Docs, Microsoft Teams, Samepage and Asana. Using these apps, workers can share files, exchange messages and work together on projects. And because collaboration apps are hosted online, they allow workers to access files and project information from any internet-connected device.
Technology offers countless benefits for your business. Using it, you can reach mobile users with marketing messages, monitor your business’s performance, foster customer relationships, automate payroll, improve the quality of your products and encourage worker collaboration.
by Rick DelGado, Independent Author
“I’ve been blessed to have a successful career and have recently taken a step back to pursue my passion of writing. I’ve started doing freelance writing and I love to write about new technologies and how it can help us and our planet.” – Rick DelGado
