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Jason Obrien

How to Run a Successful Faith-Based or Religious Fundraiser

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Raising money for a church, religious community group or other faith-based project requires money and time just like any other venture. Whether you’re single-handedly trying to get a project off the ground or you’ve joined a large mission and been tasked with bringing more funds on board, there are many things you can do to increase revenue and run a successful fundraiser.

Target the Right Supporters

While casting the net as wide as possible can work in some situations – especially when you have a large budget to utilize – focusing on a smaller group of supporters is often a more effective way of fundraising and could mean that you find a more engaged supporter base.

With faith-based and religious fundraising campaigns, it’s important that you reach out to the people who are likely to be sympathetic to your cause. For example, non-religious people are unlikely to feel compelled to donate to a faith-based project, even if it’s for a worthwhile reason.

Find Different Ways for People to Donate

Not everybody is comfortable with donating online, and others may not be happy to hand over their cash in the street to somebody they have never met before either. Finding a variety of ways for people to donate money to your cause can help you to generate as many funds as possible.

When looking for tips to starting your faith-based fundraising campaign, you will often be encouraged to look into online fundraising as well as offline options. In addition to making the most of local communities and support groups, contact people online and use social media platforms to reach more potential givers and supporters.

Connect with Other Faith Groups

Other faith groups will likely be trying to raise funds for their own projects, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be willing to help with yours. The very nature of charity and faith-based work means that those involved are more likely to support projects and causes outside of their own immediate circles.

Visit other churches, groups, and community centers to tell them about your new campaigns and projects. Be open to hearing about the campaigns of other groups and explore what you could do to mutually support other causes.

Stay in Touch with Supporters

Staying connected to your supporters and helping them to feel like they’re involved with your campaign can help to generate more funds in the future.

People are more likely to support a campaign if they feel personally invested or connected to it. Sharing positive impact stories and regular updates, as well as thanking your supporters for their help, are all great ways to ensure you increase your chances in the future and make your fundraising campaign as successful as you can.

Running a faith-based fundraising campaign is almost identical to running any other form of fundraiser. But a few tailored adjustments could mean that you reach more people, increase your chances of raising funds, and build a loyal supporter base for future campaigns.

Key Metrics That Will Help You Understand More About Your Customers

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The more you know about your customers, the better you can serve them. Understanding your customers’ pain points, loyalties and circumstances can help you to target your strategies to perform better than ever before. You may have already read about setting up your customer engagement strategy, but in this article, we are looking at the key metrics to assist with this. These metrics will provide you with valuable insights and information into your customer’s lives and purchasing decisions so that you can improve your marketing efforts.

Decision Making in Workplace

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS is a useful metric for so many reasons, and it is vital for understanding your customers. This data will reveal how likely a customer is to recommend your business or products to friends and family. It is widely used by businesses of all sizes and across all industries because it can provide valuable information about how customers feel about your company. Gathering this data is easy, and all you need to do is ask customers how likely they are to recommend your business on a scale of one to 10.

Customer Engagement

Measuring customer engagement can help you to understand how your audience interacts with your business. Some consumers like to just make a purchase and go on their way, while others will be far more engaged. Customers with strong interactions with a brand are often more likely to be repeat purchasers. Tracking customer engagement can reveal how often they communicate with your business, how long they spend on your website, or how many pages on your site they click on.

Customer Retention

Customer retention is critical for success. In fact, just a 5% increase in customer retention can improve profitability by 75%. Put simply, customer retention is how many clients purchase from your business for a second time. This can vary greatly depending on the nature of your business and the industry you operate within, but almost all companies will benefit from improving their customer retention rates. Understanding which customers are likely to come back again can help you to hone your remarketing efforts in the right areas.

Customer Effort Score (CES)

CES is a way of measuring how much effort it is for customers to interact with your business. Whether that is making a purchase, contacting your customer services team, or something else entirely. This metric is measured by asking consumers how much effort they had to put into complete various tasks with your brand. It is essential for understanding your customer’s friction points and can help you to work out what they need for a more seamless experience.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

This metric demonstrates how valuable a customer is to your business over their lifetime. When you look at this information, you can quickly understand which customers are worth retaining and which are less valuable to your company. Using CLV to understand more about your customers can help you to see which marketing campaigns are effective and how you can improve your customer experience.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

It is so important that you understand how satisfied your customers are with your service, products, and business in general. CSAT is a metric that measures exactly that. It looks at the average satisfaction rating of your customers. Most brands use CSAT to look at specific areas of the business, such as contacting customer service, completing a purchase, or how well a product is performing. CSAT is measured by surveying customers and asking them to rate their satisfaction using a scale from ‘not satisfied’ to ‘very satisfied’.

Visitor Intent

Tracking visitor intent can help you to understand the reasons why your customers are visiting your website. It delves a little deeper than metrics such as time spent on site or bounce rates and looks into their reason for visiting in the first place. From this information, you can gain an understanding of what your customers are looking for, which can help you to finetune your website in order to serve them better. Visitor intent can be captured using simple website surveys which ask visitors to choose an option that best describes the focus of their visit.

Cart Abandonment Rate

If you are operating an eCommerce business, then the cart abandonment rate is a very important metric to measure. If your customers are adding products to their cart and then not completing their purchase, it could indicate there is an issue with your online experience. Looking at your cart abandonment rate can help you to understand where in the buying journey customers are being put off, and from here you can make changes to fix it.

Using these metrics, you can gain a solid understanding of who your customers are and how they interact with your business. You will be able to identify the consumers who are most important to your brand, and spot opportunities for success in your online experience.

How RPA Helps Businesses Become Recession Proof

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The recession seems to be inescapable. But while stocks continue to plunge, specific industries remain insulated. One of the industries that are prepared for transformations is Robotic Process Automation (RPA).

As the Covid-19 pandemic triggers dramatic shifts in the economy, many are wondering if inclining to technology, such as RPA, is the ultimate move to survive a recession.

In this article, we will discuss RPA and how its helping organisations through this current crisis.

What is RPA

RPA is a software that automates the repetitive tasks humans do with their computers, such as filing forms, reading databases, creating calculations, opening emails, collecting social media data, and extracting data from files. It can manage a whole process or parts of it. RPA can accomplish a large volume of tasks in minutes, which would typically take hours for humans.

Man touching icons

In 2018, it generated $52.3 million in total revenue, which is a 48% percent increase from the prior year. Although the Australian market is still considered small, it is growing fast.

How RPA Reduce Expenses

Automation is highly essential for struggling organisations that can’t afford a large on-site and offshore team. Therefore, there is an expected substantial boost in RPA adoption in a time of recession. Data shows that global spending is expected to reach $1.58 billion by the end of 2020.

High Efficiency: Can operate 24/7 for 365 days and can complete processes a lot faster than a human being. More affordable than hiring an offshore staff who can handle different time zones.

High Accuracy: Only follows a structure, resulting in high consistency and compliance levels

Rapid Application: Does not require training and systems integration

Low Risk: Changes, patches, and licensing can be managed effectively by an experienced IT staff

RPA is suitable for the customer service setting by allowing you to focus on more valuable interactions through human creativity and lateral thinking.

RPA In Difficult Times

Due to economic uncertainty, the RPA industry is placed in a fluid position right now. While businesses realise the importance of accuracy, efficiency, and speed offered by this software, recession forces us to maximise human intellect for continued growth and survival.

It is important to note that efficiency isn’t the only advantage of RPA. It can also be used to improve customer services, which is critical in maintaining revenues. For this reason, RPA may increasingly migrate from the “back office” to the “front office”.

What Do These Terms Mean?

Back office tasks refer to tasks that run the organisation behind doors. These include inventory, accounting, quality control, and order processing. All other functions with a sales or customer support nature are classified as front office task. Even if these processes can’t be fully automated, RPA can speed them up.

Why Integrate RPA Into Your Front Office?

When front office processes are automated, it can result in faster transactions and faster communications with significantly minimal error margins.

For example: Instead of hiring people to read and sort thousands of customer emails manually. RPA can automatically forward the emails to the right departments so that you can focus more on high-value correspondence. This is incredibly helpful in today’s market, where promptness tends to attract more customers.

Its biggest adopters are telcos, banking institutions, insurance companies, and utility providers. Experts predict that RPA is set to have a 29.30% from 2019 to 2026.

While RPA is relatively new, its applications continuously evolve.

Using RPA The Right Way

Shane Perry, a startup investment expert at Max Funding, believes that it is high time to adopt technologies, “Just like any other form of technology, RPA isn’t the solution for everything. It definitely has disadvantages, such as scaling difficulties and pricey licensing. For this software to be implemented successfully, the strong internal focus is needed.”

Some experts think that RPA may only deliver short-term results. To avoid this, your organisation should use a comprehensive strategy.

Rise of Hybrid Workplaces

Hybrid workplace

During an economic slump, the rate of organisations turning to technologies with a wide range of applications surges. While RPA has superior efficiency, it’s not the solution to all processes. This is where business process management, AI, and other integrated solutions enter the picture.

Once you’ve fully integrated these solutions into your organisation, you can build a workforce that may exceed what humans can delivery. However, the human factor is still crucial for RPA implementation. So, you need highly-skilled technicians to implement and monitor RPA bots to address any hiccups promptly.

Because RPA functions for tasks with distinct inputs and outputs, rule-based, or only repeatable, it cannot make complex decisions. RPA’s major limitation is its inability to understand and interpret context or anything out of the structure, such as images.

RPA During and After Pandemic

High technologies are helping societies cope with the challenges of Covid-19 pandemic, and experts believe these will also be useful once this current situation is over. The aftermath is also filled with challenges as we all try to resume regular routines. Every industry may experience an avalanche of bookings, orders, refunds, requests, complaints, reschedules, etc.

RPA bots will be incredibly helpful in this situation. They can be programmed fast and, once installed, they can handle a vast amount of dull, redundant, time consuming but relatively essential tasks. They can prevent your employees and systems from getting overwhelmed.

Bottomline

RPA turbocharges efficiency, minimises costs, improves flexibility and resilience, and maximises results. This technology addresses the challenges of the current crisis, allowing organisations to, not only survive, but come out stronger.

It could protect an organisation during recessions. But only if it is implemented and supervised correctly. You have to work with specialists in determining the best solutions for your business.

9 Benefits Of API Integration For Your Business

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As a business owner, you should take advantage of the power technology offers to ensure you’re always ahead of the pack. One such innovation that helps you do this is the Application Programming Interface (API). Thanks to this software, two apps that aren’t designed to work together can interact and exchange information smoothly. 

The API allows the seamless transfer of data between these two points, and helps your business achieve its business goals. Without further ado, let’s take a look at how the API integration will benefit your business, if you’re still skeptical. 

What’s API Integration? 

Application Programming Interface is a highly specialized piece of computer code. You can run two different programs, databases, or applications using this code by enabling communication between them and sharing operations. When running your business, you’ll occasionally encounter complicated technological demands that you can address by implementing API integration. This way, you can integrate databases and programs with the existing industrial applications. 

APIs help you achieve this by ensuring seamless and continuous communication between different applications. In addition, it promotes product innovation, and gives employees the benefits of numerous cloud-based applications. Thanks to this, companies can launch creative ideas without using up lots of time and money.    

How Can APIs Benefit Your Business? 

API uses

API integration is essential today due to the increased usage of cloud-based tools and applications used by companies. Here are some ways API integration streamlines your company’s operations and provides your customers, employees, and partners with an improved experience. Let’s get started.

Promotes Innovation 

Being innovative is more important than ever to maintain a competitive edge over your business rivals. If you don’t want to go out of business, then it’s time to consider integrating APIs, say from https://www.softpullsolutions.com/api-integration/. When you do this, you’ll consistently be thinking of new products to introduce into the market to satisfy your customers’ needs and expectations, which are changing continually. API integration ensures your business always crosses your customer’s minds, thereby ensuring you continue being relevant. 

API integration helps your business keep up with the swift innovation as it enables you to create solutions that make it possible to develop newer things. This is achieved because APIs offer external developers standardized interfaces. 

In the past, the approach was different because only developers with deep knowledge of data exchange models could use APIs. This was the case because of the extremely rigid interfaces needed to be followed when assembling software components. Due to this, creativity was hampered. But API integration has removed this bottleneck. 

Increased Productivity 

Modern software is in great demand nowadays. Because of this, companies are constantly thinking of quick and innovative ideas on how to develop new products. However, the last thing you want is the developers needing to start from scratch to create a new application, even when a set of APIs already exist to offer an identical solution. Otherwise, you’ll end up negatively affecting the productivity of your company. 

Because of this, you should look to incorporate the use of API to avoid such a situation. This will enable quicker development of new products by swiftly implementing the API’s functionality rather than building from scratch. Therefore, you won’t have to spend valuable time developing products from scratch. In the long run, this improves your company’s productivity, and helps you quickly achieve your set business objectives. 

Improved Customer Experience 

Customers form your company’s backbone. And without them, you’ll soon be out of business. Therefore, you need to constantly provide them with customized and personalized experiences to make them loyal to your brand. This is crucial today as outreach and marketing efforts are no longer enough for customers who want and expect you to better grasp their position and needs. It’s only after better understanding their needs that you’ll be in a position to think of personalized and customized messaging to target them. 

With API integration, you can accomplish this goal as it helps you to create effective and new ways to interact with your clients. This is achieved as APIs allows your business to promote your services and data to your consumers. As a result, they enjoy greater freedom over their customer experience and enjoy a lot more possibilities. Thanks to the API, it’s easier for the developers to understand the customer’s expectations, and come up with an appropriate solution that meets their particular needs. 

Automates And Streamlines Numerous Business Processes 

It’s easy to assume that manual efforts don’t take a lot of time to finish. However, these tasks, such as clicking from one application to another, eat up a considerable chunk of your time. Due to this, your efficiency is reduced considerably. API integration helps address such issues by creating an effortless and smooth switch between the interconnected applications. Therefore, you can spend your precious time on other essential aspects of your business. 

Better Marketing 

Companies worldwide understand that digital marketing is the route to promote your products or services to your consumers. This has become more important as banner ads haven’t been as effective in driving the desired traffic to businesses. In addition, it’s hard to gauge the effectiveness of a banner, which may affect your marketing strategy.  These are shortcomings API integration helps to address, by enabling you to show dynamic banners and ads on third-party apps to a relevant target audience. 

API integration also helps your business increase lead generation from different channels, including many social media platforms. If you’ve run a startup, this is excellent news because finding new leads will become less difficult. 

The reason for this is that you often end up searching for leads in the wrong places, thereby using up a lot of your time and effort. But by integrating APIs into your system, such issues are avoided, and you’ll be able to streamline the lead generation process. This will help your business land new customers, brand ambassadors, and potential partners. 

Enhances Connectivity And Collaboration 

Today, new applications are constantly being unveiled. While these applications help companies carry out many different activities, they hinder smooth connectivity and communication. Due to these, many businesses have a disjointed system that can’t smoothly share functionalities and data. 

This is an issue that API integration has sought to address by helping boost communication and collaboration within the business. APIs seamlessly achieve this because their primary function enables the various platforms, systems, and applications to connect and share data easily. With this enhanced connectivity, businesses can now develop interoperable components which streamline operations. In addition, this helps the business provide the desired functionalities by removing all the different bottlenecks. 

Helps Your Business Be More Data-Driven 

Your business is where it is at the moment due to the expertise, experience, and intuition you bring to the table as an entrepreneur. But if you want to advance your company’s progress even further, then it’s time you consider using APIs. This is advised as many of the current APIs have real-time access to relevant data that makes running your business a lot easier. Using such useful data increases the chances your business will be one step ahead of your business rivals. 

Knowing this, you need to integrate APIs into your business and get more in-depth analytics to get more comprehensive market insights. This way, you’ll be in a position to make more responsive, accurate, and sharper decisions involving the running of your company. 

Reduces Business Costs 

Developing an app isn’t cheap, and various factors affect how much money you’ll spend during such a project. Some of the things include:  

  • The kind of technology being used 
  • A developer’s expertise 
  • The project’s complexity 

When you use APIs, you’ll be able to significantly reduce the cost of developing an application as it takes less effort to develop one. This is because developers don’t need to start from scratch when creating a particular application, as they can get the desired functionality from somewhere else. This then saves your business both money and time that would have otherwise been spent developing an application. 

Enables You To Exploit The Functionality Of Other Apps 

Today’s world is more interconnected than ever before, so you can’t fully depend on your company’s infrastructure alone. Fortunately, this has been made possible by API integration, enabling you to link to other known and reputable technologies. 

This handy feature allows your clients to continue using the digital payment processors, multimedia, and search engines they know and feel at ease using. Because of this, your clients enjoy the complete functionality offered by such applications and systems without leaving your company’s platform. 

As an entrepreneur, this saves you the hassle of developing your own infrastructure. Instead, all you need to do is synchronize and connect external APIs with the company’s current technology. Doing this will also help boost your customer’s confidence in your brand. 

Takeaway 

Technology is the linchpin that ensures your company succeeds in the highly competitive business space. API is one example of such technology that you should capitalize to increase your competitiveness. As a result, your business can grow a lot faster than ever before. After reading this detailed guide, you now understand how APIs help you attain this goal. 

Exporting to EU After Brexit: What We Know So Far

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The UK as an ex-member of the EU is presently allowed to avail favored market rights to 40 countries from 70. Keep in mind that those 40 countries trade with the EU already.

If there would be no new contracts to make up for the preceding losses in the business industry, the UK will have to follow the tariffs rules imposed by the World Trade Organization. Negotiations are ongoing to avoid Britain from suffering massive losses in merchandise trades.

If you are planning Exporting to EU, after Brexit, then you must know and follow the below points:

after brexit

Be Sure to Get EORI

As an entrepreneur, you need to ensure that your company has an EORI number. To keep on importing your products to the UK, a 12-digit number called EORI beginning with GB is a must-have. If your company does not own any EORI number, there may be delays and higher costs when you import goods and commodities. However, if your business is service-centered, then EORI will not be a requirement.

If you are trading in the EU for your company’s products, there would be a requirement of an EU EORI. If you don’t have any number with this name, then you should apply for it at the customs office of any EU member country. For the time being, it is possible to have alternate ways of exporting goods.

For example, the top 3 Italian exports are metals, machinery, and textiles. Learn more about this, reading this article about Italy’s exports. Until the Brexit period ends, it is very convenient to export products, but after that, the rules would be even more difficult in terms of weight, or quantity.

Create Export Statement

To create an export statement, you can employ a special agent or expert. Even if you are capable enough, you can do it yourself too.

  • Freight agents can help you deliver goods all over the world, and even help you clear customs at the borders.
  • If you opt for presenting an export statement to customs by yourself, then be mindful of three key factors when exporting goods from the UK. Those 3 keys are:
  1. How to create?
  2. When to create?
  3. Which documents should you have for custom clearance?

Check the Payments

If you export products and commodities from the UK to any member country of the EU, the EU importer should pay duty taxes for the products and commodities to be received. The amount of taxes and fees payable depends on the type of products exported.

Know the Rules

You have to see the guidelines about exporting different goods. For example, you will need a license for exporting goods like tobacco, etc.

Check VAT Procedure

The VAT procedure is going to change after Brexit. Therefore, you need to see and plan how you can claim it from the EU members.

Be Sure to Transfer Goods Properly

Containers

In the post-Brexit period, you can use a representative/contractor to ship your goods out of the UK at any time, but if you ship by yourself, you must get an operator license to transport the goods without any hurdle at the border.

Your queries about exporting goods to the EU after Brexit are always welcomed. Drop your message for us or ask in the comments below!

Top 7 Business Shipping Challenges And How To Address Them

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For many businesses, it’s never easy to get their products shipped to their customers. In fact, there are various things that can go wrong when it comes to business shipping. For instance, aside from dealing with hefty fees, business owners may deal with damaged products and lost packages.

Fortunately, there’s a solution for every business shipping challenge. One of these solutions includes finding the best customs broker to help you expedite your shipment’s customs clearance.

Other than that, to help you avoid customer complaints regarding your shipments and solve your biggest shipping concerns quickly, below are the common shipping challenges and ways to address them effectively:

Shipping Delays

Shipping

One of the toughest and most common shipping challenges for businesses is delays. There are several reasons why delays happen. Often, delays are classified into two forms, which are internal delays and external delays.

External Delays

When it comes to external delays, they’re typically due to some factors, such as delivery vehicle breakdown, poor weather conditions, and heavy traffic. In this kind of delay, there’s nothing you can do to resolve such issues.

That’s why some companies have created solutions, like delivering products via drone. However, such solutions aren’t practical. So, the only best way to address it is to inform your customers as soon as possible about the possibility of shipment delays.

Internal Delays

Internal delays, on the contrary, are something you can control if you’re aware of them. For example, you can prepare your items as usual without any customization. With this, you can easily hand them over to your preferred shipping couriers.

If you’re planning to send packages to other countries, be sure to prepare the important documents required by the customs to improve your business’s delivery process. This is because authorities may put your shipments on hold if you don’t have the right documents.

Damaged Items During Shipping Or Handling

Transport conatianers

As a business owner, you should be aware of the harsh conditions in most shipping streams. The forces that shipments may face as they’re loaded in the ships, trucks, and planes are greater than what they’re experiencing when sitting at your home or business location.

To resolve this problem, have a proper crating and packaging scheme in place. If your items are packed or placed in shipping crates well, the risk of damage is reduced.

Order Returned

Even if the possibility of this shipping challenge is rare, business owners may feel uneasy once their orders are returned. The situation can be much tougher to decipher if you have an inexperienced or unorganized order management system. In addition, you can miss some of your orders if your warehouse is big or if you’re dealing with countless orders every day.

Also, if you use third-party shipping carriers for your business shipments, you’ll need to contact them to find your packages. If you’re out of luck, the search might take several days, weeks, or even months.

To avoid this frustrating situation, you should always keep in touch with your chosen delivery agent. Luckily, there are some shipping plugins you can use to track your shipments in real-time. This kind of feature has different order status checkpoints, which will keep both shipping carriers and business owners aware in case an order was lost or misplaced.

Route Disruptions

Some things outside your control may affect shipping routes. Political unrest, pandemic, and natural disasters are some of them. While such events are unpredictable and can’t be prevented, think of other ways to deal with them.

For instance, you can work with the best shipping logistics service providers that monitor every event that may affect their shipping routes. If problems arise, they’ll take advantage of their industry contacts to change the path of their shipments to avoid any possible trouble in the long run.

Customers Refuse The Delivery

Even if it’s uncommon, there are instances wherein some customers don’t pay their orders and would often request to return them. This may happen for some typical justifications, such as when customers made the wrong placement or the items they received were damaged or incorrect.

Regardless of the case, it’s never simple to manage returns. The reason behind it is that you need to get the orders back, unpack your items, and place them back in your inventory. Handling returns may also cost you time and money.

To avoid losing resources and lessen the hassle, you can make a minimum order limit for cash on delivery (COD) products and charge fees to customers if they refuse to accept the orders. This is necessary as it can help prevent damage to your revenues and avoid future delivery refusals.

Expensive Shipping Costs

For both business owners and customers, shipping is never cheap. Generally, the cost of shipping packages may depend on some factors, like how much the packages weigh, where they’re going, and how fast they need to be delivered. Unfortunately, several businesses don’t know how to handle expensive shipping costs.

To avoid paying a high shipping cost, one of the options you can consider is to let your customers pay for it. When you charge your customers for shipping, you’ll allow them to order your items without the need to worry about your profit margins.

However, it isn’t always a good idea because some customers don’t like expensive shipping costs. So, you might want to charge your customers a flat rate and affordable shipping fee to reduce the shipping costs and avoid driving your customers away. Just make sure to consult your shipping company regarding the costs, so you and your customers won’t be surprised by the charges.

Unexpected International Fees

Unlike domestic shipping, international shipping is more expensive since the packages have to be transported in far places. In addition to that, international shipments are subject to local taxes and duties. For this reason, some businesses get rid of international shipping as much as possible. However, if you want to serve customers globally, you need to deal with international shipping.

Therefore, instead of eliminating international shipping from your business, be clear with the policies involved with it, so your customers will be aware of the possible extra fees they need to pay for international shipping.

Conclusion

To provide excellent customer service, it’s essential to be aware of the common business shipping challenges and the best ways to resolve them. With this in mind, you’ll be able to impress your customers by handling shipping issues with grace. Plus, you can ship your products or items with confidence. Just make sure to continue planning and improving your shipping strategies to provide the best possible shipping experience to your customers.

5 Tips To Get The Most Out Of Your 2021 SaaS Marketing Budget

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It’s 2021, and you most likely have a budget for your SaaS marketing efforts for the year. But the big question is, “How do you get the most out of these funds?” Not to worry, we have the answers.

Boost your Marketing ROI with this SaaS Marketing Hacks

A reputable SaaS marketing agency Getuplead has verified the hacks we have provided below. So, you only have to worry about implementing them the right way.

1. Your marketing activity metrics must be linked to your budget.

Your marketing goals are often dependent on several factors, especially the stage of the business you are currently at. For example, the early stages may be all about getting new customers or subscribers, while you can focus on retention if you are already established.

Either way, you must identify the right marketing activities to fetch the highest number of leads, thereby maximizing your marketing budget on the right channels. But, of course, you can continually refocus on the areas that perform well.

Linking your marketing metrics to your budget can contributes significantly to your business’ growth. For instance, you may want to convert 40% more freemium users or increase the pipeline by 15% monthly. You may also be considering breaking into a new market or getting existing customers to buy more.

Your goal will determine the tactics to go with, while the budget only serves as the driving force. After all, every marketing goal is tied to helping your business grow.

Summary – Do a regular assessment of your marketing performance and budget. Identify your marketing goals and work towards it, while adjusting allocations in line with the returns.

2. Always make adjustments after re-evaluating the ROI.

Identify the best performing marketing activity in line with its goals and how it has helped achieve business growth. Although a lot of planning goes into marketing budgets, they must also be flexible enough for adjustments.

So, you must be ready to make changes based on the current realities. For instance, if your marketing fund will bring you more leads when invested in PPC and webinars, you shouldn’t spend it on advertising at trade shows. Likewise, if you are diving into social media marketing, you do not have to invest in the mainstream platforms if your audience can be found on Quora and LinkedIn.

Summary – You should always be ready to adjust your marketing activities as soon as it is necessary. You should treat every marketing budget aspect the same way. Giving preference to one aspect over others may hurt your marketing goals.

3. Be ready for the marketing growth marathon.

You need a calendar and a product roadmap to make the most sense out of your marketing budget. This is the only way to know what you will need for your marketing efforts and when you will need them.

For example, you may find Q1 and Q2 the peak periods for SaaS companies, with Q3 and Q4 slower due to the summer and winter holidays, respectively.

Summary – If you are getting the desired results, you should find a way to celebrate them. It could be mini-breaks with the team or late mornings if the funds for a holiday are not available.

4. Always involve your customers.

You can pursue growth while staying with your budget using this marketing concept. How? Find a way to convince other people to be your brand ambassadors, and do the marketing for you. For instance, you can introduce an incentive for every successful invite by existing users. This does not have to be necessarily monetarily, but value-added options on your products.

Alternatively, you can introduce a free offer to entice customers to refer your business. However, your choice of the free offer must not incur any additional cost. We recommend free audit, a custom demo, or downloadable materials.

You can also reach out to customers to see if they can offer testimonials, which you can use as marketing materials for cross-promotion. Again, this should not be a problem if your customers are happy about the services they get, and it is also an avenue to associate their brand with yours.

Summary – Existing customers can bring you new ones. You only need to offer an incentive or irresistible offer to make them your marketers and sources of new leads.

5. Assemble the best marketing team.

Having an excellent team is often overlooked when it comes to maximizing marketing budgets. Every team member must be very good at what they do, understand your business goals, and achieve them by developing and executing the right marketing plan.

Human resources are obviously the most expensive line item for almost all budgets. But you can still get the best hands in sales and marketing for SaaS without breaking the bank. In the end, you must be able to decide if you are better off with a marketing agency or a single, local full-time marketing employee.

Summary – You can ask for referrals when filling marketing positions. Help new members learn and grow into their roles and capabilities. Furthermore, you should create an enabling environment and a reward system for best-performing team members.

Finally…

If you adopt these five hacks, you will be on course to get the maximum returns from your marketing budget for the year 2021. Remember, it’s never too late to make the right moves.

Strategies For Bridging The Gap Between Medical Billing Expectations vs. Reality

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All the efforts you spend treating patients wouldn’t keep your business afloat if you fail to get paid for the services rendered. That’s the reason many healthcare businesses are facing economic downfalls. There is a huge gap between medical billing expectations vs. reality.

For instance, you can witness an enormous difference between the customer expectations and the reality of services a billing agency provides. Your medical business needs a reliable billing partner who understands your requirements just as your patients require the best services from you. Professional medical billing companies address your concerns and fulfill your demands according to your expectations. 

However, there are some misconceptions associated with outsourcing that tend to be harmful as they portray a bad practice in the market. For many medical facilities, it could be difficult to gain trust and allow someone to handle medical billing and coding on their behalf_ especially if they had a very bad experience in the past.

It’s important to understand the difference between medical billing expectations vs. reality, uncovering the truth behind them to improve the profitability, productivity, and efficiency of your healthcare business. So, what should you expect from an outsourced billing expert?

Medical billing specialists offer customized RCM services to streamline your workflow and reduce your workload. They are well-versed in utilizing the latest technology and always stay updated with the growing and changing government regulations.

Before further discussions, let it be clear that, no matter whether or not you outsource your medical billing services. You have some responsibilities too. For instance, you must have a complete understanding that the success of your practice depends on many things such as:

  • Accurate medical billing and coding.
  • Clean claim submission.
  • Streamline revenue cycle management.
  • Optimize A/R recovery services.

Once your billing procedure gets optimized it can significantly lower down your economical pressures and advance you to brighter opportunities.

Medical Billing Expectations vs. Reality

Less Control Over Business

Many medical professionals thought that by outsourcing they could lose control over their business. But it’s not reality. Outsourced billing companies provide you assistance for a particular practice procedure. They have the right personnel having the best knowledge to handle your billing and coding efficiency.

They provide reliable services for managing billing tasks and boosting revenue streams. Furthermore, the outsourced billing specialists not only look over your medical billing but also optimize the whole process of revenue cycle management.

Billing experts help you save time to stick to a realistic budget and focus on your core objectives too. You can also enjoy the advantages of outsourcing your medical billing services to an agency that understands how to work or how to make your business successful?

Some of the major benefits are;

Act as an Extension

Find the best medical billing agency that meets your expectations and cares about your business growth. Billing professionals act as an extension to your business. They drive you to the right way so you may enjoy the highest financial success.

At this point, you can see how outsourced billing specialists address your pain points and provide solutions accordingly. They provide customized medical billing solutions that best fit the financial needs of your healthcare business.

With the right partner, you can gain full control over your practice and this will also positively impact your business.

Prevent Revenue Backlogs

Do your practices work on regular operating hours? It would be advantageous if you outsource your medical billing & coding services. The efficient billing teams provide effective strategies and help you capture accurate data to update patient claims efficiently.

This helps your team to work at a consistent pace throughout the day and also prevents revenue backlogs. In this way, they reduce the chances of costly billing/coding errors, prevent denials, and help you recover payments significantly.

Ability to Upgrade

Contrary to medical billing expectations vs. reality, outsourcing provides you complete control to keep a better track of your revenue cycle. Billing specialists will truly expand your business to new horizons.

Cut Operational Expenses

The most compelling reason to outsource your medical billing services is the reduction in operating costs. Spending extra costs to recruit, train, and hire new staff to get the billing procedures done on time can impact your budget drastically.

Reliable medical billing companies eliminate all these expenses. They have trained teams that help you streamline your revenue cycle management effectively.

Therefore, practitioners can save a lot of their costs and avoid making major investments like installation of billing software, infrastructure, maintenance, upgrading, etc. Without having to hire full-time employees, getting the assistance of medical billing experts can enhance your business proficiency.

Moreover, outsourcing can allow you to better manage your time and focus on the core competencies of your business respectively. Besides, with a trusted partnership, you’ll be amazed by how much more profitable your practice will be and what you will save.

Lacking Industry Experience

The most crucial and most abundant aspect that can be considered is that the practices that outsource are inherently lacking in knowledge in some way. When you outsource, you get help from certified billers and coders who have vast industry experience and in-depth knowledge.

They stay up-to-date with the billing industry regulations that keep changing and help you keep up with the innovations. In addition to this, they help you make use of the latest technology and integrate EHR/EMR systems to automate the entire billing cycle.

Thereby, they help you submit faster, error-free claims electronically. In addition to this, a skilled medical biller helps you keep track of your finances by providing regular financial reporting and analytics.

Conclusion

Hence, outsourcing medical billing services bridge the gap between medical billing expectations vs. reality. The certified billing experts are committed to providing extraordinary and compliant services to their clients.

4 Benefits of a Knowledge Base Software for Your Business

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Creating sustainable assets for modern business is critical to have a competitive edge over competitors consistently. When you are operating in a saturated market like that of SaaS, this becomes even more critical.

A knowledge base for your SaaS business is any day, a potent growth-hacking asset. However, managing a knowledge base all by yourself is challenging. This is where knowledge base software comes in.

The software creates clear, concise, and engaging knowledge transfer and communications with all the stakeholders associated with your product. What follows is better retention and improves efficiency.

Still not convinced?

Let’s clear your mind.

In this post, we deep dive into the many benefits a knowledge base software brings to your SaaS organization in 2021.

4 benefits that a knowledge base software provides your business in 2021

knowledge base software provides

A knowledge base software at its core strives to achieve one goal, drive growth. In a modern software company, a SaaS knowledge base might be termed as the most valuable asset.

It is a systematic framework that creates robust, consistent communication between all the stakeholders of a business organization. Be it your end-users or product developers and marketers; it creates room for everyone to achieve more with the product.

In doing so, it targets to improve multifarious areas in a business process. However, let’s find out how it benefits your SaaS business in 2021.

1.   Improves productivity

The most critical asset that your SaaS business can ever have is time. After all, time equals money. In a perfect scenario, you can count your team’s complete working hours to be productive. But the reality is far from being so.

Even if your teams are immune to distracting funny cat videos on the internet, staying focused is hard. With leaky communication and knowledge transfer pipelines, staying at the top of your game is immensely difficult.

A recent study revealed that an average employee spends nearly 20% of their working hours searching for support via their emails and other platforms like Slack. This is where a knowledge base software comes in.

Integrating this tool creates a single information kiosk for every team member of yours. Whatever is the problem, your team member has an answer in real-time and real quick. What follows is your organization’s experience skyrocketed productivity and team collaboration. The best part is it is sustainable and low cost.

However, if you are still unsure how it performs, we explain how.

a)     Declutters workspace

Creating a one-system knowledge kiosk for answering all the FAQs (frequently asked questions) a knowledge base software brings ready reference support for all your product development teams.

It removes all unnecessary communication systems and events that create redundant work, focusing on hyper-active problem-solving. What follows is a productive, efficient process.

b)    Shorter response time

The first benefit of real-time team assistance makes the product development process agile. Not only can your SaaS development team fix bugs and system errors faster, but you can find standard protocols for developing cleaner codes with the help of the knowledge base software.

c)     Improves quality

A knowledge base software is a great way to optimize the creativity and efficiency of your teams. By eliminating redundant conversations, it not only reduces the working hours of a team member but ensures that they do not undergo the biggest flaw of today’s work from home culture, the burnout.

This makes sure the overall quality of the product improves while your teams can achieve more in a lesser number of hours.

2. Establishes an agile business process

An agile business process is a critical requirement for any SaaS organization, be it a startup or enterprise.

Keeping your teams resilient to respond to your target audience’s changing behaviors and problems is the only way you survive the competitive landscape. But the problem is, it is easier said than done.

A knowledge base software makes a powerful tool to improve this situation. Keeping all your stakeholders inside the knowledge loop creates a unified system of dynamic content. Be it your development team or marketing and sales team, or end-users; everyone participates in the content generation process. What follows is a content creation process that is collaborative, relevant, and insightful to create creative and innovative products.

The best part is it’s a powerful tool for attaining product-market fit.

Here are a few ways that knowledge base software takes business agility to new levels.

a)     Improves employee management

Managing employees is one of the most critical and complex tasks of your business. Be it engagement or training, if your employees do not feel connected with your company, having high performance and productivity is just a wish.

Traditionally you can create this process via an HR (human resource) induction program. But with remote teams working globally, this method is immensely flawed and inefficient.

A knowledge base software creates a clutter-free medium for your hiring process. Not only is it a comfortable way to give your employees a virtual tour of your company values and mission, but they can get acquainted with the process before they start working.

The best part is they do not need any assistance to do so. Not from any HR, neither from senior team members. This improves productivity optimization and almost automates your hiring process.

b)    Designed for scalability

Designed for scalability

A growing business means a growing number of employees. But to reap the benefits of this human capital, proper knowledge transfer is critical.

A knowledge base software makes this look like a cakewalk. With dynamic content created by multiple users, you not only improve collaboration but reduce per capita workload.

The best part is unlike traditional models of collaboration, it is not limited to a few member interactions. It can be accessed by multiple users simultaneously.

This means no matter how many employees you onboard or how many team members need assistance; your knowledge base software can give them real-time support without dampening the experience.

c)     Improves comprehension of customer needs

Customers are the blood-pumping organ of your SaaS business. This makes keeping them at the center of your business operations is critical. If you fail to understand your customers’ core problems and pain points, chances are your business will fall flat sooner than you think.

A knowledge base software ensures that the brand-customer conversations go on. Allowing your customers and prospective leads to generate content in your knowledge base ensures you know when their behavior and priorities are changing. What follows is improved customer satisfaction and chances of developing a viral product.

3. Strengthens marketing communications

In a modern attention economy, where gaining a new customer is 5 times more expensive than retaining one, you cannot afford to lose them.

This makes staying at the top of your customer’s minds one of the critical marketing tasks. However, doing so is hard. While an omnichannel approach can help you reach your goals, it is expensive at the same time.

A knowledge base software is one of the most potent ways to connect with your customers intimately while keeping your costs low simultaneously. What follows is robust, comprehensive marketing communications.

a)     Boosts SEO

Optimizing your knowledge base and ensuring it is indexable by search engines ensures your customer acquisition is automated.

The best part is you can now rank for keywords related to your product and gain customers who are actively searching for a solution to problems that your product solves.

b)    Improves brand equity

Customer trust is one of the most critical yet challenging objectives of marketing. Creating a knowledge base to assist and empower your target audience with the information they are looking for instantly helps build trust and confidence. It helps to build a community.

The best part is it helps to boost brand equity that can be a critical competitive advantage for your business.

c)     Improves customer retention

Customer support is a critical growth metric for any SaaS business. Your customer’s overall product experience is heavily driven by the service they received post-sales.

A knowledge base software is your solution to delivering superior customer experience and assistance, fostering long-term relationships with your customers. But that is not all. It creates opportunities for relevant upsell and cross-sell. What follows is an influx in your sales.

4. Delivers superior customer experience

Delivers superior customer experience

Customer experience is vital for the overall success of your product. But the problem is creating a superior customer experience is hard. You need to exceed customer’s expectations and create a delightful brand experience. The hardest part is it has to be achieved at scale.

A knowledge base software ensures that quality customer experience is deliverable at scale consistently.

a)     Provides end-to-end customer support

Creating a curated help desk ensures you have all the common questions and FAQ (frequently asked questions) of your users answered most engagingly.

If something is not covered, letting your online user community answer it for each other makes it more comprehensive.

b)    Provides real-time customer support

Having created a knowledge base is immensely beneficial for the real-time support of your customers. No matter how long the queue is or what time it is, they can find solutions to their problem whenever they want, wherever they want. Also, it optimizes your operations costs as you can operate with a smaller support team.

c)     Provides updated content

Creating a dynamic learning product kiosk with a knowledge base software ensures that your content is engaging, relevant, and updated.

Unlike traditional human support, where a new hire may not be aware of some facts about the product, a knowledge base does not suffer information constraints. It knows it all. This translates into best problem solving in real-time.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that a knowledge base software can bring recurring benefits to your business. Even if you had some inhibitions, the above benefits must have cleared them by now. But the real value of a knowledge base software is seen by shifting your mindset about this asset.

A knowledge base should be treated as a stakeholder learning kiosk. It is where all your community gets real-time, updated information about the products and services. Be it your product development team, marketing and sales team, or end-users and customers; everyone should get the answers to their burning questions.

If you follow this core principle of building a knowledge base, you will be on the path to reach the next level in your business.

So now, there is just one question to answer. When are you integrating this powerful growth-hacking tool?

3 Common Mistakes Made by B2B Companies

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Although business-2-business sales can be profitable, a few mistakes here and there can ruin your business. When you keep making these mistakes, they begin to affect your business significantly and cut down your business profits. Sadly, not every business owner can point out these mistakes. It’s worse, especially when other business owners around you are doing the same thing. So, what are these common mistakes, and how to solve them?

Not Going Straight To The Point During Your Sales Pitch

You may be wondering, “But I go straight to the point during my sales pitch, so what do you mean?”. That’s why earlier on, this article mentioned that it is hard to point out some of your sales mistakes. Here’s how you may be getting it wrong with your sales pitch:

Not so long ago, it was perfectly fine to spend a more significant part of the time talking about your product’s features in your sales pitch. However, in today’s world, your customers just want you to go straight to the point — talk about results. When you spend half the time talking about your product’s features and compositions, you end up boring the prospective client. In most cases, your prospect will politely tell you they’ll reach out to you. The truth? 90% of them don’t call back, which leaves you wondering what you did wrong. The truth is you did not do anything wrong. You just refused to get one thing right.

So, what do you do? The next time, instead of talking about the features and benefits of your product, talk about results. Research their business to find out what specific problems they might be facing. Tell them how your product can solve these problems, thus making it easier for them to run their business. Where appropriate, give them practical examples of companies that have used your products in the past to solve their problems. This way, you should be able to close a sale.

Always Giving Discount Sales on Your Products

It is understandable when sales are moving at a snail’s pace, and you just clear out your products from the store. So, you give 10, 20, 30% off or even slash the price in half so that you can sell them. The good news about this strategy is that you will sell them. The bad news about this is that you won’t be making any profits at the end of the day. You may even lose some of your capital to discount sales.

The truth about discount sales is that it attracts every and any customer. If you have an ideal customer your brand caters for, discount sales will ruin that. So, what do you do? Instead of rushing to give discount sales, focus on creating valuable products and finding the ideal buyer. Offering discount sales now and then will only reduce your product’s value and the company’s credibility in the eyes of your prospects. Another thing you must understand is the part that patience plays, especially when your product is unique. Sometimes, it may take a while before you meet with your ideal customer. However, when you do close off a deal with them, you will be glad you waited.

Now, this is not mean that discount sales are a bad sales strategy. However, you must not do it all the time.

Putting Unnecessary Pressure On The Prospects

When prospects say that they will get back to you, the wise thing to do is to follow up. This way, you are constantly reminding them about your business. However, there is such a thing as putting unnecessary pressure on the client. When you call a prospect three to four times a week or send them daily email reminders, it can become irritating. Some prospects may simply block you while some will ignore you.

You need to understands that following up is not the same as being in their face all the time. Give the prospect the time and power of choice to decide whether or not they want to patronize you. There’s no need to call them and you can limit your email reminder to once a week.

Forgetting about Cash Collection

So, what about actual clients whose invoices are way overdue for payment? A lot of companies prioritize closing deals and measure their growth based on their sales performance. However, there is no meaning in making a sale if you don’t get paid for it. Businesses must not forget about cash collection. In fact, 82% of all companies fail because of cash flow mismanagement. 

If you struggle to get paid by your customers, you should get B2B software to help you collect past due invoices. Upflow is one of the most recommended accounts receivable management software in 2021. As of June 2021, they announced that they’d closed a $15 million Series A funding round to revolutionize how B2B businesses get paid. Consider using Upflow if you want to track your unpaid invoices and get paid faster.

Conclusion

These common mistakes are what prevent a business from growing. However, with the solutions this article has given you, you should be able to avoid them.