10 best marketing tools for startups (free and paid)

10 best marketing tools for startups (free and paid)

10 best marketing tools for startups (free and paid)

March 28, 2024

Best marketing tools for startups

Every startup wants to grow, and marketing is an integral part of that growth. Using the most popular marketing tools for startups you can take your business to the next level. Every startup wants to increase its visibility, generate more leads and profit. The right combination of tools could speed up the growth process, and improve your overall marketing strategy. Whether analytics or design, only a comprehensive selection of tools can turn your startup into a fully successful business.

10 best marketing tools for startups looking for grow in 2022

When launching a new product, company or idea you need a toolbox of the best marketing tools. We’ll walk you through the best marketing tools for startups–and don’t worry, most of them are free or low cost. As for the paid ones, they’re priced to help fledgling startups without deep pockets.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the most widely used tool for analytics. It allows users to track website performance, collect visitor insights, determine sources of user traffic, compute the success of marketing campaigns, as well as to obtain demographic user information. A very unique aspect of this tool is the conversion reporting function. Namely, you can identify the exact path a user takes before purchasing your product or service. That way you can better understand the user journey and later tailor and improve the user experience. By analyzing customer behavior, all startups can develop a unique marketing campaign and increase website visitors and customers. Although it is for free for anyone with a Google account, it also offers a paid version of $12,500 per month or $150,000 per year.

Segment

Segment is another great tool for analytics. The data you collect from other platforms can be aggregated into Segment and then be used by hundreds of other tools for marketing, analytics and data warehousing. Segment is perfect for those businesses that are sending data to several databases and integrating with lots of different marketing tools for startups. The free version of Segment includes up to 1,000 Monthly Tracked Users (MTUs), where paid plans start at $120 per month for 10,000 MTUs.

Mixpanel

Mixpanel is a granular data collection tool that allows you to analyze each customer interaction across the entire user journey. The tool evaluates 67 billion actions and presents the data to the users in a clear easy-to-understand format. It is an event centric analytic program where you don’t record the user pageviews and clicks, but it also serves as a platform which tracks events. Mixpanel is mostly free, including up to 5 million data points per month with limited features. The paid plan starts at $99 per month for 10 million data points per month with full features.

Monday.com

Primarily a project management tool, Monday.com is used by marketers to create effective workflows. Most importantly, their software enables businesses to customize their automation based on a system of triggers, where each trigger activates an action that, in turn, generates more leads. With it, one can organize their leads based on their contact information, conversion potential and onboarding status to approach them in a more targeted manner. One of their built-in tools, Monday CRM is specifically designed for the organization and generation of leads. Monday.com is offered for free, but it also has paid plans with more benefits, starting with 8$ per month.

CIENCE

CIENCE is a widely used lead generation tool. They build highly targeted campaigns, which in turn generates businesses more targeted leads. CIENCE offers the quickest, most-targeted path to market using their so called Orchestrated Outbound program to deliver qualified sales opportunities. The Orchestrated Outbound program relies on AI-enabled research, multi-channel outreach, and proprietary software platform to start sales conversations with any customer. When it comes to pricing, they say they are “Less expensive than an empty pipeline”. They offer several packages whose price depends on the customer’s needs.

Canva

For many designers Canva is indispensable. It makes sense that the most popular design tool on the internet has perfectly designed services. Its platform provides a simple online interface that generates images, media content, printed brochures, websites, product mockups, business cards, online display ads and more. Due to its extensive use, no wonder Canva is considered one of the best marketing tools for startups. Part of Canva’s popularity is due to its accessibility, as it is essentially free, whereas paid plans start at $12.95 per month.

Placelt

Essentially a design template website that uploads new designs and mockups every day making them the largest depository of design templates online. Make use of their templates and services to create branded images or videos that fit your exact industry needs. Placelt is perfect for business owners, marketing teams, and especially startups. While mostly free like their range of free tools, the video and image croppers, and the video to gif converter, it offers paid plans starting at $14.95 per month per user.

Google Search Console

Google’s very own Search Console is one of the most effective SEO optimization tools on the internet. It can be used for at least two purposes: it helps you measure your site’s search traffic and performance, and it makes your site stand out in Google Search results. It really helps you discover which queries bring users to your site, by analyzing your site’s impressions, clicks, and position on Google Search. The best thing is that Google Search Console is completely free, and it doesn’t include any paid plans. 

Keyword Tool

 Keyword Tool allows its user to find complementary keywords using Google’s autocomplete engine. It can be used as an alternative to Google keyword research — capable of building 750+ long-tail keyword combinations with the free version. Although not considered one of the most popular marketing tools for startups, it can still add the extra boost to your marketing strategy. The Keyword tool is for Free, and pro plans start at $88 per month for advanced features and granular data.

SEMRUSH

SEMRUSH is a self-named “all-in-one digital marketing tool”, a comprehensive workflow tool for SEO. Beside the usual SEO tools other platforms offer, SEMRUSH offers auditing your SEO performance, tracking positions for keywords, generating ideas for traffic, as well as monitoring competitors. SEMRUSH also offers analytics for paid online campaigns and social media, however their strongest offering is the organic analytics component. There is a limited free version of the platform, but most paid plans start at $100 per month.

Conclusion

It can be tough taking a startup to the next level. There are a lot of factors to consider when building a successful marketing strategy and using effective marketing tools for startups is a big part of it. Using the best marketing tools can help you optimize your business, increase its visibility, bring it closer to your target market and customers and most importantly increase your profit.

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Benefits of crypto and the problems it solves in the business world

Benefits of crypto and the problems it solves in the business world

Benefits of crypto and the problems it solves in the business world

March 27, 2024

Benefits of investing in Crypto

Crypto technology has only been around for some 12+ years. However, the impact it created is pervasive. Not only is it revolutionizing modern-day industries but challenging our approach to work every day. Bringing in transparency, speed, and performance, cryptocurrency is driving us to the future of global industries. 

But to understand the benefits of crypto and how can help you grow your business requires understanding the multi-level benefits it brings to your operations. This is what exactly we are going to reveal in this post.

 We take a deep dive into the core areas where this bleeding-edge technology leverages your business to improve your sales pipeline and create a more robust and sustainable business. 

Let’s dive in.

9 benefits of the crypto revolution for your business in 2024

Cryptocurrency brings a multitude of benefits to businesses and their consumers alike. But at the core, it revolutionizes how we look at business operations today. This makes understanding the benefits of crypto easier if we map how it solves the core problem areas that matter for a business. 

The following are the most prominent ones that you can readily witness in your business.

1. Transparent and faster transactions

Unlike traditional businesses, crypto does not complicate the transaction process between two parties.
Decluttering the transaction landscape from brokers, agents, legal representatives, and other middlemen, the crypto technology creates a safe and secure one-on-one direct transaction landscape. Integrating a peer-to-peer networking infrastructure, you can directly conduct a transaction with the responsible party. It is advisable to use a professional firm such as this UK crypto accountant to make sure you keep on top of your financial gains.

What follows is a discernable reduction in unnecessary expense and time consumption required to complete one successful transaction between two parties. What’s more? You get more transparent and simpler audit trails bringing in greater accountability in every activity. This means better optimization of your business resources.

2. Easy asset transfer

One of the most innovative benefits of investing in cryptocurrency for business across all verticals is a safe and hassle-free asset transferring system. Here’s how it works?

The cryptocurrency blockchain is like a gigantic database of property rights that can be leveraged to execute and enforce two-party contracts on multifarious commodities of which automobiles and real estate are the most common. However, cryptocurrency does not stop at that. It can also facilitate other modes of transfer that require special modifications.

Speaking of how to use cryptocurrency for business, you can design a contract to add a third party approval, refer to external facts, or timestamp your contracts with precision. What’s more? Because cryptocurrency enforces advanced security over the access of respective accounts, your exclusive governance makes asset transfer time and expense radically go down.

3. Improved confidentiality

Confidentiality transactions are one of the top benefits of crypto that a business can perform any day. Cryptocurrency happens to ace the confidentiality problem like no other. 

Unlike traditional banking systems, cryptocurrency brings more flexibility regarding what information you want to share with your banking agents every time you do a transaction. 

In a banking system, whenever you use debit or credit cards to perform a transaction, it gets documented via a reference number to keep records of how money flows in and out. For even more complex business transactions, a thorough financial audit might be required. But with cryptocurrency, you can filter the information at each step of the transaction. 

Each transaction you make through cryptocurrency is unique, that you can regulate between two parties. From negotiations to agreements, all can be filtered out at every step. What’s more? The exchange of information is performed via a push approach that gives you leverage to transfer exactly what you like and how you like. 

As a result, your financial history trail and privacy get better protection from identity threats and hackers throughout the transaction chain, an element in which a traditional banking system fails to serve your business.

4. Lower transaction fees

No doubt you are well versed with your monthly statements from the bank, whether you are writing a check, using your credit and debit cards, or using electronic transfer facilities like mobile banking and internet banking. But what looks very insignificant of an amount for single processing can take the shape of significance when accumulated together. This becomes even more significant if your business integrates high-frequency daily transactions.   

If you take a close look at your business account, you might get surprised to see the amount of money that you pay as transaction fees in a month.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and USDC successfully removes this barrier so that you can focus on fast and easy transactions. To reduce the transaction fees, cryptocurrency uses a data mining model. 

Here the coders and developers, also known as data miners, perform the data crunching using multiple computers and systems interconnected through the same network located at various places globally. As these developers receive their compensation through the crypto network, the transactions fee goes significantly down. There are times when it is not even applied.

5. Higher accessibility

One of the unfair business uses for cryptocurrency is higher levels of accessibility to transact. No matter what place you are located in, the remote and rural or accessible, metropolitan city, you can perform transactions from the comfort of your home. 

Cryptocurrency transfers operate on two foundational elements: the internet and safe virtual data transfer. This makes this facility readily available to one and all. All you need is a viable internet connection, preferably a high-speed one, and some knowledge about the cryptocurrency platforms facilitating the transfer.  

This viability creates opportunities for businesses to develop their customized network of partners and vendors, allowing you to optimize your product development costs. 

A recent study estimates that almost 2.2 billion individuals have internet access yet no traditional banking access. This is a heavy indication of the opportunity available for businesses to grow their networks with audiences where it was not possible in the past.

6. Easier international trade

The benefits of using international money transfer companies are many. They are easier to use, cheaper, and faster  But it’s important to understand that not all businesses in this relatively new industry are equally reliable. Therefore, you should use a comprehensive international money transfer service guide to choose the company you can trust with your money.It is worth to note that. unlike traditional international money transfer services, cryptocurrency doesn’t bar international trades. 

This means no matter where you are placed and with whom you perform a business transaction, traditionally imposed taxes and restrictions like exchange rates, interest rates, transaction fees, and other levied charges by specific countries are not applicable in this transaction ecosystem.  

What follows is a free flow of international trade and exchange. To facilitate this, cryptocurrency integrates the decentralized, peer-to-peer model of blockchain technology, creating simpler, faster, and more transparent trading. What’s more? You do not need to overthink the highly volatile nature of currency exchange rates here.

7. Maximum control

One of the most considerable assurances that cryptocurrency provides is complete ownership of your assets and accounts, unlike traditional models of banking. 

In a traditional banking system where a third party safeguards your funds with distributed ownership, your assets are always in a high-risk zone. Your account can get closed without prior notice due to multiple reasons like infringement of terms and conditions and more. This not only creates complexities and chaos but dampens your asset security. 

Cryptocurrency gives you complete authority and ownership of your crypto wallet encryption keys without any intervention from 3rd parties. Neither can anyone else access nor operate your crypto wallet until you delegate the management and maintenance task to a service provider.

9. Robust security

If there is one element that the cryptocurrency champions, it is complete security for all the parties involved in a transaction.

Starting a cryptocurrency transfer requires you to authorize the transaction via all the stakeholders involved. Once done so, it cannot undergo a reversal process like traditional banking facilities. 

This step is designed to validate the authenticity of the stakeholders and is a significant step to fight back against frauds and scams over the landscape. Creating a specific agreement established a hedge between the buyer and seller refunds for the specific event if any failure to meet any expectation was defined and agreed upon in the agreement. 

Cryptocurrency utilizes a decentralized and powerful encryption technology to process and store transaction data and ledgers to ensure the security of accounts and transactions performed over its network.

Conclusion

Cryptocurrency is no doubt the technology of the future. Benefits of crypto have the potential to transform your complete business ecosystem by exponents, be its transparency, speed, or costs.

However, here’s what you need to be aware of.

This technology is still in its early developmental stage, with new virtual currencies being launched each day. The same reason makes its adoption rate still much low. This means you have a first-mover advantage here. The faster you integrate it into your business operations, the higher your chances to possess advantages over your competitors.

This leaves only one question left unanswered. When are you integrating cryptocurrency into your business?

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Managing remote teams: Best practices and tips

Managing remote teams: Best practices and tips

Managing remote teams: Best practices and tips

March 25, 2024

Everything you need to know about managing remote teams

Some people will say that now, we’re in the golden era of remote work. Technology and tech related jobs are leading the way as remote tech jobs are becoming virtually the norm all around the world. But anyone who’s ever worked this way knows how challenging managing remote teams can be on a daily basis. 

When it comes to managing remote teams, communication is probably the toughest nut to crack. And when you struggle to get on the same page with your team, many things are likely to go off the track. Increased project costs and failure rate, longer task delivery periods and decreased productivity are only a few to name. Hence the importance of managing remote teams effectively.

Challenges of managing remote teams

Before we get to the remedy, we need to assess the problem that bothers your team. No remote team management tips will ever be effective if you don’t understand where the issues with remote team collaboration come from in the first place.

Virtual decision making to include the team 

Virtual decision making often makes teams feel excluded from the process. Virtual decision-making, such as virtual voting, is one innovative solution to provide a platform for team members to participate in decision-making processes and contribute to the team’s goals.
Virtual voting can foster a greater sense of ownership and accountability among team members, even if they are not physically present. Moreover, virtual voting can improve communication and reduce misunderstandings, providing a space for team members to discuss ideas and share feedback.

Your team tries to apply old ways to the new setting

Imagine this: you’ve got a task for your colleague. They work just a few steps away from you, in the same office. What you’re going to do, most likely, is to get up, approach them and delegate said task verbally.

Now, in the remote setting, there’s quite a bit of distance between you. Many companies try to replicate this “approach and delegate” method. Doing so, they end up on endless video conferences or call each other several times a day.

When you look at it from the side, it doesn’t make much sense to do so. Just because something worked in the office, it doesn’t mean it will work in the remote setting. Things once effective may now be your biggest time wasters.

And nobody likes daily calls anyway, right?

Your team has got no idea on how to get organized

If your team is new to remote work, then it’s likely you’ve got no idea where to even begin. Should you just get video conferencing software and call it a day? Do you need more tools? New processes?

Don’t beat yourself about it if you’ve got no idea how to organize your team’s work in the new setting. It’s not an easy task even for the seasoned remote workers.

That said, keep in mind that being clueless on how to organize things could lead to mistakes that damage effective remote team collaboration.

Lack of shared working space

In an office, you share a common space where you see your team on a daily basis. Maybe you meet up in a social room. Maybe you’ve got a giant whiteboard where people pin their messages and add notes about projects.

With remote work in the picture, the physical office vanishes. And with it, the precious aspect of sharing your working space.

Suddenly, you lose all ties to your colleagues. You’re alone in your own home office. You’ve got no idea where others are and what they work on. To get an update on tasks, you need to get on a (yet another) video call.

It’s hard to communicate when most that you’ve got in common are spreadsheets you’ve shared online.

Unclear rules and undefined processes

It can be related to the fact you’ve got no idea how to manage the work of your newly remote team.

Because of their limited ability to quickly communicate on the changes, distributed teams have double the need of working according to strict patterns. When questions arise and you can’t immediately get in touch with the right person, processes and tasks get delayed.

Remote team collaboration suffers from lack of processes. Getting them right could solve quite a few of your problems.

Different expectations and habits related to remote work

Imagine the situation in which the team switches to remote work. They were happy in the office and collaborated well. Now, the manager, full of trust towards their team members, believes they are fully capable of getting around the new setting.

Meanwhile the employees, even though having the best of intentions, are lost in the situation and count on being guided.

This is an easy example of how different people can view remote work. Some people need more flexibility. They want to be trusted and left to work independently. Others, on the other hand, need guidance and a daily to-do list delivered to their inbox.

Using tools for managing remote teams successfully

Now that you know what troubles your team most, let’s talk about the solutions. For example, software is a wonderful addition to your workflow. There are so many different apps and tools for managing remote workers that could help you resolve any issue.

So let’s have a look how you can leverage tools to manage remote teams.

Get into (extreme) details

If you go with a task assignment/project management tool, you’ll have plenty of room to describe what you want from your team. Use it to the fullest. Include checkpoints, control lists, useful materials, examples, samples, templates – anything that your team can use to get the job right.

Think of it this way: you’re not in the office and you can’t look over your colleague’s shoulder to check the progress. Oftentimes, you won’t see the task until it’s delivered to you. That’s exactly why you want to offer sufficient information to get it done right from the get-go.

Pick the right communication channel

You and your remote team needs to agree on one crucial thing: your main communication channel. It could be email threads, once-a-day video calls or setting up a chat room. You may also keep all the discussion to the comment section of your task. Don’t be afraid to innovate and experiment.

Another powerful tool for managing remote teams is SharePoint, which offers a comprehensive solution for creating dashboards that enhance collaboration and productivity. SharePoint allows you to design visually appealing and customizable dashboards, providing a centralized hub for your team to access important information, track progress, and share updates. By exploring more on how to create a dashboard in SharePoint or its other functions, you can leverage this platform to streamline communication, improve task visibility, and foster a collaborative remote work environment.

Use task tags, deadlines and assigned Users

The majority of tools for managing remote teams you will pick comes with deadlines, tags and user assigning (if they don’t, they’re probably not good enough for you ). These are features we often underestimate in managing workload of our teams.

Meanwhile, by applying such simple filters you can easily see if your work is evenly distributed across areas, employees and deadlines. Depending on your software, it may take two to three clicks to understand if someone is overloaded or whether deadlines come too closely together.

Use appointment scheduling tools

Most teams use an appointment scheduling tool to arrange meetings and calls with their clients. But it’s a creative thing to do to use them to arrange team calls as well.

By choosing the date from a shared calendar, you can cut out the annoying shuffle related to picking up the date that works for everybody.

11 tips for managing remote teams by experts

As a company that has operated fully remotely since the beginning, we know how important experience is. What we thought would work, sometimes proved ineffective and vice versa. With this in mind, we reached out to leaders who’ve been through the same and have the best remote team management tips at hand.

Being on the same page

The key to managing a remote team for me is trust and communication – namely a healthy balance between the two. 

You need to make sure that all of the team is on the same page and aware of what’s expected of them while working remotely, but it’s also important to trust your employees enough to take the initiative and work sensibly and independently while they’re remote. No one feels empowered to do their best work if their boss is micromanaging

Remote working is actually a really productive time for a lot of people – without the constant ping of emails or colleagues coming over for a chat – so keep communication channels open but trust people enough to get on with what needs to be done. 

At Untapped, we use Slack for the team to communicate and have different channels organised by projects and clients. It’s super handy for keeping files and notes in one place, plus a quick and easy way for the team to communicate and get answers quickly (without being piled under by emails).

Corrie Jones, Founder of Untapped Digital

Ask four questions

On days when my team works remotely I set up a brief conference call at the start of the day (2 minutes) to ask each member:

  • What their goal is for the day;
  • What they want to achieve;
  • If they need any help to achieve it;
  • How confident they are in achieving it. 

Then at the end of the day I make a follow up call to see how everyone got on. I find this helps get everyone focused.

Nathan Kelsey, Managing Director at Make Me Local

Sharing knowledge

I work for a VA Agency. Myself, the two founders and one other work remotely alongside our team of 40 + VAs. We use some great tools for working collaboratively. 

Slack for instant messaging, with threads for different teams. TikTik is a great tool for getting tasks done, assigning tasks and can integrate with calendars such as Google Calendar. 

Finally, Kipwsie which we use as an online knowledge base so everyone who works for us knows where to find essential information about our business, whether it is our VAT number or FAQs we get from clients about how we work. It is such a great tool for sharing knowledge and even better integrates with Slack.

Anita Vickers. Client Engagement Manager at Virtalent

Personal communication

When the team is in the office they have a banter, they play some table tennis, they drink coffee and chat. You need to create a time and space for people to share personal stuff. Add some time at the beginning of your weekly catchup to give each person to share what they did over the weekend. Create a virtual bulletin board for people to share their photos. Don’t forget that they aren’t just colleagues… they’re friends.

Susan Hallam, Founder and CEO of Hallam

Being laser-focused

Youmanage is an HR software developer based in Scotland. Many of my colleagues work from home, and we use Microsoft Teams to keep everyone connected, no matter where they are. Regular communication through Teams is essential to ensure no one is left out and that productivity is maintained. We do this by using multiple channels within Teams, so that information is relayed only to relevant team members, which means that everyone remains laser-focused.

Craig Hynd, Marketing Executive at Youmanage HR

Individual vs team conversations

We run as a virtual PR agency, so we have always been a remote team.  

We use Slack a lot – it was a slow burn but now everyone loves it. The threads allow you to have a conversation with the whole company or individual project teams, which keeps things focused and means people only read what they need to do. The ability to chat with the whole company is really valuable – as remote workers, we can all feel isolated at times, we can all suffer from imposter syndrome and anxiety, and we can all miss out on office banter and gossip. Slack gives us access to a time management tool and a digital water cooler moment.

Charlie Le Rougetel, Founder and Director , BIGTOP PR

Flexible timings

Keeping morale and employee motivation high is top of many leaders’ priorities, but more so when your workforce is remote or suddenly has to self-isolate. When many workers are remote, more consideration has to be given to company processes and methods of communication. 

Some tactics that have worked for Degreed, where over half the workforce is remote, involves using video conferencing as the default (versus calls) with the video on, as this helps communicate non-verbal messages. Over-communication is essential to keep everyone fully up-to-date and to set expectations. 

Being a global company, Degreed also emphasizes flexibility with timings, to accommodate different time zones and work styles (fitting around the school run, for instance). Messaging tools like Slack allow for constant communication and spontaneous moments, similar to office watercooler chat. 

Learning and upskilling are vital for engagement, as it keeps workers constantly challenged, growing and can change the pace of the working day. It helps to build a strong and innovative culture that supports people at all stages of their career and also cultivates personal passions. Notably, during this time, workers may have more downtime than usual (because of a lack of commute, for instance) and having access to learning content can keep days fresh and interesting.

Sarah Danzl, Director of Communications at Degreed

Juggling the right apps

Our entire team is based remotely and over the years I have discovered some useful apps for managing the team effectively. 

I use Zoom for regular face-to-face catch ups and I also love Microsoft Teams, either on the phone or the PC. We use Minute Dock for managing timesheets as it integrates with Xero so well. There are many great apps for working on live documents and sharing them that we use including Google Docs, Dropbox/One Drive and Sharepoint and we also have experience of Trello and Slack. 

Personally, I find the Pomodoro technique of 25 mins work with 5 mins rest, using the Focus Keeper App, really keeps me on track and motivated.

Rebecca Newenham, Founder & Director, Get Ahead VA

Retrospective calls

Best tips for managing remote teams? Daily stand ups every morning to keep the team in the loop about what each other are working on in the day!

Running a retrospective video call every Friday in the afternoon to discuss what the team has achieved throughout the week and if they have had any issues during the week 

We run everything online including Asana to update tasks that have been done, Slack for the team to have immediate contact with each other, Zoom to create videos/call clients across the world and G Suite so every doc is kept online and can be seen/amended by anyone.

Elliott Davidson, Founder and Director of Contrast

Staying on top of everyone’s work

One of the challenges many managers that are now working remotely face is how to stay on top of their employees’ work. With everyone working from their homes, managers cannot simply walk over to an employee and take a look at what they are doing.

For this reason, many remote companies are relying on remote team management software to help them keep track of their employees’ work. With remote employee monitoring software, managers can easily monitor their remote workers, just as if they were sitting at the desk next to them.

Vojin Deronjic, Content Writer at Workpuls

Staying organized

Melewi has been a remote company since day 1. We’ve been through quite a few trial and errors until we’ve reached a daily work process that makes us collaborate effectively as a remote team. I would say it’s a combination of many small things we do: 

  • Daily standup.
  • 4-hour overlap, when everyone’s online and we schedule meetings
  • Single source of truth – a very well organized place where we keep our internal knowledge, so everyone knows where to look for answers.
  • Spending time for causal chit-chat – something that’s taken for granted in an office environment, but is equally important for team morale. 
  • Well-structured client communication – everyone from the team knows what to do at which point, so we never have to wonder whether the ball is in our court. 

Rumen Manev, BD & Partnerships Manager at Melewi

Conclusion

Managing remote teams is not an easy task. As much as technology helps, nothing can replace face-to-face communication. However, with right managing remote workers tips and tools nothing is impossible. After all, there are thousands of companies around the world successfully operating with fully remote teams.

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Benefits of google advertising for small business in 2024

Benefits of google advertising for small business in 2024

Benefits of google advertising for small business in 2024

March 04, 2024

Google advertising for small businesses

Using Google advertising for small business is a common practice today compared and while it may seem easy to set up, it definitely shouldn’t be underestimated. One wrong click and you can kiss goodbye thousands of dollars. 

To prevent that from happening, we’ve gathered some precious advice from experienced professionals who are very familiar with Google Ads for small business. They’ve seen all the pitfalls small business owners are lured into. But more importantly, they also know all the ways to avoid falling in these pitfalls.

 

The biggest mistakes small businesses make with Google Ads 

Budget

The biggest mistake small business owners make with Google Ads is budget versus campaign size. As a Google Premier Partner who specialises in working with SMEs, each time our first conversation is about setting expectations. Depending on the vertical or on the market the advertiser is in, cost per click (CPC) bids might be around £2 so if the daily budget is only £10 a day and there are lots of potential customers searching for the service/product, 5 clicks a day isn’t going to get much traffic, let alone results. Read more about how to avoid PPC spending disasters in this article about budget pacing.

It is important to have a clear outcome in mind and build the account to achieve that outcome, with campaigns that match the size of the budget, which is a realistic amount to achieve the outcome. The Google Keyword Planner is a great place to start as it will give you an understanding of the cost & results you can expect to achieve.

Jaye Cowle, Founder of Launch Online

Small businesses seem oblivious to the fact they are spending more on ads than those ads are bringing in. They just kind of assume advertising is a cost of doing business, but don’t actually dive into the analytics to figure out that they are paying $20 to get a sale that makes them $10. Now initially sometimes ads aren’t profitable when experimenting and dialling things in. However, ads should quickly become profitable or you should stop that ad and try something else. 

John Frigo, Digital Marketing Lead at Best Price Nutrition

Keywords

The biggest mistake I see is that if business owners are running their own Google Ads, they don’t pay enough attention to Negative Keyword Lists

Negative keywords are a simple way to ensure your search terms don’t appear for irrelevant terms, and to exclude common terms which you may not want to appear for.

For example, a retailer selling luxury handmade engagement rings might be bidding on “engagement rings ” as a broad match phrase. 

Left unattended, this keyword bid may appear on:

cheap engagement rings 

vintage engagement rings 

antique engagement rings

unusual engagement rings

luxury engagement rings

platinum engagement rings

Of course, some of these will be relevant and happy to appear on, but ideally, they would be excluding terms like “cheap” or “vintage” if they are not appropriate. 

Negative keyword lists need constant attention with the regular and consistent trimming to ensure the budget is not being wasted on irrelevant search terms. Log in and check the Search Terms at least twice a week, ideally more depending on budget, to make sure your spend isn’t wasted. 

Adam Bastock, eCommerce SEO at abastock

A lack of understanding around potential customers’ search intent and not sourcing the right keywords to target are two interrelated mistakes made by small businesses using Google Ads. 

For example, I have seen local businesses miss out on locally-focused keywords that may result in their ads appearing in front of relevant searchers in their area and better

outcomes. Instead, they have tried to target broader, national words in their industries.

Andrew Clark, Marketing Strategist at Duckpin 

Another big mistake that small business owners make with Google Ads is cluttering their campaigns with too many keywords that don’t convert very well. The best way to solve this is to limit each ad group to around ten keywords that are extremely relevant to the content of the ads within that ad group. This way the user’s search query and the content of the ad that receives an impression are a very close match.

Michael Anderson, Marketing Specialist at GeoJango Maps 

A lack of keyword research can certainly prove costly for a business running Google ads. The keyword should resemble the product or service your business is currently offering, the wrong keyword can significantly increase the bounce rate (number of visitors backtracking after clicking initially) and this results in the budget being taken for unnecessary and ineffective traffic. This can be solved with an easy solution with SEO tools such as Ahrefs and Google Keywords.

Rizwan Girach, Chessgammon 

Match types

The biggest mistake I’ve seen several times with small business owners is not knowing about the correct usage of match types. They’ll put in a keyword like “Accountant” as a broad match, and get tons of clicks that are never going to convert. Match types aren’t an especially complicated concept, so a small business owner either needs to spend a bit of time learning more about Google Ads or hire someone to give them a basic set up that at least avoids the obvious pitfalls.

Abir Syed, Digital Marketing Consultant at Upcounting.com

Most business owners assign Broad Match keyword to their ad campaign(s), and since Broad Match is meant to capture as many variations of the keyword as possible (BM keywords also captures traffic to topic related searches that don’t have to include your target keyword) on the web, the small business owner starts losing advertising spend quickly because the ad is being shown as much as possible throughout the internet.

To avoid this issue, small business owners should learn about how keyword match types work or speak with a PPC specialist.

John Pinedo, Co-Founder of Instinct Marketing

Audience

Trying to be all things for everybody is yet another mistake small business owners make with their Google ads. You must focus on your target audiences. Know what they want and need. Learn what their interests are. You must know what makes them tick. That’s the only way your Google Ads can get views. If you know what your target audiences are looking for, you’ll know how to sell to them.

Julia Brookes, Finance Consultant at Now Loans 

Landing pages

The biggest mistake that I see small business owners make is that they treat just about every single click the same. In my experience, the closer you can match the ad and the landing page to the search query, the more likely it is that you’ll increase conversion rates and improve your down funnel CPAs (cost per acquisition).

A simple way to solve this is to identify the top keyword(s) that drive the most volume and create a landing page and ad that matches the search query. I would break these top keywords out into their own ad group and focus on creating the most consistent and relevant experience possible. Then move onto other keywords as time permits.

John Porrini, Founder of LeadBoost

Too often, SMBs lack customized landing pages designed for advertising (with stripped-down navigation and a design based on best practices for optimal conversion optimization). Even more often, companies fail to create or direct ads to relevant landing pages on their website, whether custom or existing pages. This dramatically impacts conversions and indirectly, Quality Score. 

The fix: creating dedicated landing pages for Google Ads, ideally for each ad group.

Kent Lewis, President and Founder of Anvil

Data

I was getting my butt kicked in our Google AdWords account, I had tried almost everything I could think of until one simple change that I made proved to be the thing that would give me a leg up I guess my competition.

Big data is a buzzword to get stone around a lot but I was able to use it to make AdWords work for us.

I began to leverage our data, combined with publicly available census data, for marketing insights.

For example, in a recent campaign we ran in Nashville, TN , we ran pay-per-click (PPC) Adwords campaign with one ad targeting the entire metro Nashville area. The headline read ‘Local Lawn Pros in Nashville are a click away.’ and I thought the performance of the ad was good with a click-through rate of over 1% and conversion rate of over 10% on the Nashville landing page but we needed to improve on it.

We thought, how can we make this more contextual and relevant to the viewer? Se we researched census data, looking at the average income and home values throughout the Nashville area.

We found that East Nashville, an up-and-coming neighbourhood, was populated with more working class, and a creative class demographic and we hypothesized this customer segment would be price sensitive but still not want to cut their own lawns. So we segmented those zip codes and only ran a specific ad for them, with a headline ‘The Cheapest Lawn Mowing in Nashville. Lawn mowing from $20.’”

We then created a matching landing page. After running the ad for one month, on-page analytics proved our hypothesis to be true. We saw over 200% lift in click-through rate and 30% lift in on-page conversion.

Studying the data your own business generates can tell you which of your online marketing campaigns works best. Do the ads appeal to your target market or another market altogether? The data may also point to completely new areas of customer interest.

Bryan Clayton, CEO at GreenPal YourGreenPal.com

Tracking conversions

The biggest mistake we see over 90% of small business owners make when it comes to Google advertising, is not directly tracking conversions. Google has the most advanced machine-learning on the market and to make it work for you, it needs to know what to optimize around. When you tell Google what your conversions are and track them within Google Ads, you open up Data-driven attribution and bidding strategies that other small businesses miss out on.

Grant Higginson, President of Welby Consulting

Display advertising

We are a small business and one of the biggest mistakes we made was keeping the Display Advertising selection checked when setting up our account. We wasted so much money there and didn’t know until months later Display Advertising should have its own campaign. 

We unchecked that option and immediately saw far better results and were actually profitable!

Jeff Moriarty, Marketing Manager at Moriarty’s Gem Art 

Advertising an entire catalogue

The biggest mistake small business owners make with Google Ads is trying to run ads to their entire catalogue. When it comes to paid traffic, not all products are going to be profitable. It’s important to pick and choose the products you’re putting ads behind based on common sense, average order value, and data. This is especially crucial with Google Shopping, many newbie store owners (myself included when we were starting out) just turn on the shopping feed with their entire catalogue, and let it run.

Cole South, Co-Founder of Gold BJJ

Conclusion

It takes more than one try to make a successful Google Ads campaign. Or better yet, it takes constant effort to find the perfect formula for your business. And even when you find it, it will most likely change sooner rather than later. So keep on experimenting, testing, learning, but never give up. Moreover, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Paying an agency to run the ads for you can sometimes be more cost-efficient than doing it by yourself.

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10 benefits of hiring millennials: Tips to attract them (2024)

10 benefits of hiring millennials: Tips to attract them (2024)

10 benefits of hiring millennials: Tips to attract them (2024)

February 28, 2024

Benefits of hiring millennials

One of the biggest decisions you need to make as a business owner is who to hire on your team. Do you prefer age diversity in the workplace, only senior employees or millennials? 

The only way you can make the right decision is by doing your research and be sure about what can every generation bring to your company. Therefore, let’s start with the pros of hiring millennials.

Millennials, with their natural aptitude for technology, social media, and creativity, millennials are some of the most ambitious employees in the workforce.  The key benefits of hiring millennials should be – they are self-starters, entrepreneurial in spirit, and hungry for success. These are traits that make them ideal candidates for any small businesses.

To get the most out of hiring millennials, business owners should think beyond the obvious perks to more original and resourceful benefits.  

10 proven pros of hiring millennials

Well, you probably heard so many bad things about hiring millennials. But actually, most of these stories were probably exaggerated or were a result of major generational differences in the workplace. Trust us, there are worse hiring mistakes you could do than hiring younger talent.

And even if you really want to avoid millennials, soon you’ll be left with no talent pool because the Baby boomers are all retired, and Generation X will soon be too.

Millennials are very sensitive to social issues

Employing millennials can benefit a company’s public image. Millennials tend to be socially conscious and will voice concerns if they feel a company project or marketing campaign might offend or exclude certain groups.

By listening to millennial employees and considering their perspectives on inclusiveness early on, companies can make internal adjustments to campaigns and other initiatives. Since they will speak up their minds if your project or your marketing campaign is offending one sector of the community, you can already edit it out internally so once you put out the project or the campaign, it will be well-loved by the whole community.

Millennials work for the company’s purpose

This is the main difference between hiring millennials versus other generations. As most millennials are doing side jobs that are able to support them well, they choose a day job that well reflects their stand in social and political issues. 

Millennials usually work in companies that have a mission geared towards helping the needy, companies that help in environmental conservation, or companies that have a proven track record in their corporate social responsibility.

They believe that their generation can save the dying world created by the generations before them so they make sure to contribute positively to society. Hence, hiring millennials can save you a lot of money and reinforce your company’s positive impact on society and the environment. Not hiring them would create a big void in your company.

They are flexible and can easily adapt

Another reason why hiring millennials is a good idea is that they’re good at seeing the bigger picture. And that encourages them to be flexible and adapt.

Millennials have grown up in an era of constant change. This unpredictable environment has taught them how to adapt easily. That’s why they’re not afraid to change jobs if they see no growth, which is often mistaken with impermanence.

They offer creative solutions

Millennials’ lack of traditional experience and knowledge can be an asset in driving workplace innovation. Without decades-long careers to shape their perspectives, millennials offer fresh, creative takes on processes, products, and functions. Their fluency with digital tools and technologies further enables them to put forward innovative ideas and solutions naturally. Companies can leverage millennials’ out-of-the-box thinking and technological prowess to reimagine workplace norms.

They are cost-friendly

Hiring millennials is also cost-friendly because they are mostly new entrants in the job market and have little experience compared to the earlier generation. Therefore, since experience is one factor used to bargain for one’s salary, possessing little of it means a low starting remuneration. 

In addition, because they are pursuing work experience to improve their resumes, you will get employees who are dedicated to their work and will give their best to bring value to the company. 

But most importantly, since you hired them in the beginning, you must keep an eye on their progress. Appreciating their dedication and recognizing their progress is crucial to make sure you keep them in your company.

Hence, if the main reason you hired millennials is that they were cost-friendly, but their work helped your company to grow, you should definitely put the cost-friendly reason aside, and do your best to pay your employees the salary they truly deserve. 

Millennials are motivated

Maybe the most important advantage of hiring millennials is that they’re good at seeing the bigger picture. And that encourages them to be flexible and adapt.

Millennials have grown up in an era of constant change. This unpredictable environment has taught them how to adapt easily. That’s why they’re not afraid to change jobs if they see no growth, which is often mistaken with impermanence.

They are fun to work with

They are energetic, outspoken, and passionate about what they do. To think of it, the presence of millennials within your office will contribute immensely to the creation of a flexible, dynamic, and efficient culture within your company.

For millennials, the idea of bureaucratic hurdles and slow services simply doesn’t make sense. That’s why having Millenials within your workspace will make the workspace upbeat and dynamic across the board.

Millennials are risk-takers and go-getters as well

Whereas previous generations followed more traditional linear career advancement, millennials pursue professional goals on their own terms. This may be one of their biggest generational assets to contribute in a workplace. Hence they also are best in gauging chances and opportunities which is why they know if it’s a good risk or otherwise.

The biggest takeaway in hiring millennials is opening your door to a wide array of suggestions and exposing your brand to more innovative techniques especially in gaining attention. Millennials know what they want, but most importantly, they know how to acquire that too which sets them apart from other generations.

They are digitally savvy

As the first generation to be brought up with the Internet and other high-tech advancements, members of Gen Y are digital natives. They’re in tune with each social media platform and many can edit a webpage with ease.

Millennials could magnify your online presence and act as brand advocates for your company. Their innate understanding of technology gives them an advantage over those who may not be as familiar with various computer programs and social media channels.

These young professionals can ensure that your business maximizes the latest tech to increase productivity, marketability, and efficiency. This means that they know a lot of things that can simplify your workflow and make everyone’s lives easier.

They are highly educated

As the most highly educated generation in the workforce, millennials offer a sophisticated skill set for businesses to utilize. A majority possess college degrees, and many hold advanced qualifications through graduate studies and certifications.

With training costs for new hires averaging thousands per employee, millennials’ innate drive to actively upskill provides built-in value. Those that invest in nurturing millennials’ intellectual capital can reap rewards through forward-thinking contributions across critical business functions.

4 tips for hiring millennials

As more millennials enter the job market, it’s important for businesses to engage with this age group and extend competitive advantages. Here are some suggested benefits that will make the process of hiring millennials easier by making young professionals consider your next job offer.

Pay off their student loan

With the average graduate joining the workforce with more than $40,000 in student loan debt, it’s no surprise that repayment assistance is a hot benefit. Paying off an undergraduate degree is an immediate concern for many young professionals. Adopting this innovative employee perk is highly coveted and will likely set you apart from competitors.

Providing in-office wellness

Gen Yers have a deeper appreciation of their mental health and well-being than their predecessors. They want to keep themselves emotionally, psychologically, and physically fit. 

This means a small business that offers holistic wellness initiatives such as yoga, free gym memberships, stress management, and dietary consultations may be more appealing. Offering free or discounted healthy snacks throughout the day is another hit with the younger crowd and it will also improve the wellbeing of employees at the workplace

Offering them flexible work hours

More than previous generations, millennials want to establish a healthy work-life balance. In fact, many see no reason to be in the office five days a week if they can be just as productive from home. For this reason, young professionals are fans of remote work options that allow them to juggle personal and work schedules more efficiently.

Implementing this benefit could increase retention among millennial team members. It also conveys confidence and trust that young employees value.

Give them learning and career development opportunities

Most millennials are in the early stages of their careers. They want to learn and grow as much as possible, which is why if your goal is hiring millennials then you should offer training and development. 

By implementing career development initiatives, you could attract the most ambitious professionals. A good example is offering international relocation, which gives Millennials an opportunity to enhance their skills, build their career and find unique and meaningful experiences in another country. Promoting a culture of learning also instils a sense of purpose for the younger generation, which may help motivate them and push your company forward.

Conclusion

The belief that hiring millennials is a bad idea is just another statement that proves that generalization is a massive problem in today’s world. The truth is, whether someone will be a good employee or not is very individual. 

But, you can’t just have job interviews without preferences, so these facts are a good start to decide where should you look for new talents. Read them carefully and decide if these qualities are a good fit for your companies needs. If yes, then start looking for new employees among millennials, and if not, set your goals and locate which generation has them the most. 

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