Utilizing Tech to Drive Expansion During a Recession
March 3, 2023
In this tough economic climate, it’s easy to feel like the deck is stacked against you as an online business owner.
During a recession, it’s all about working smarter, not harder. That’s where technology comes in. Tech tools can be a powerful ace in the hole and can help you retain existing customers, attract new ones, and ultimately drive business expansion.
By utilizing the right tools and strategies, you can not only weather the storm but come out ahead.
In this article, we’ll walk you through the different types of tech available to online business owners, and explain how you can leverage this technology to increase revenue without increasing costs.
So, grab your virtual toolbox and get ready to conquer the recession with the power of tech on your side!
Improving Automation and Efficiency
During economic uncertainty, the last thing business owners want to do is hire new employees.
So how can you grow your business without growing your expenses? By increasing your efficiency through automation.
By using software to automate routine or repetitive tasks that would otherwise require manual effort, you can streamline your workflows and make it easier to manage orders, track inventory, and process payments.
This not only saves you time and effort but also frees up your employees to focus on more value-added activities that can grow your business.
Automation can also help you reduce labor costs by decreasing your reliance on human labor, which can be costly. This means you can save money and invest those savings into other areas of your business.
Automation can even help improve customer service by automating responses to common queries, like order tracking or shipping information. This allows you to respond to customer inquiries more quickly and ultimately boosts customer satisfaction.
Automation and efficiency are the perfect duo to increase your output without increasing your headcount. Plus, you’ll benefit from improved accuracy by reducing the risk of human error, which can save you money in the long run.
How to Integrate Automation into Your Business
Let’s take a closer look at the different areas of your business that you can automate.
Automating Data Entry
Manually capturing data from things like invoices, web forms, emails, or Google Analytics can be extremely time-consuming. By automating these tasks, you can cut down on data entry errors and save valuable time.
Popular data entry automation tools:
- Zapier – an automation tool that can connect over 5,000 different apps and services to automate workflows and reduce manual work.
- Docsumo – a tool that automatically extracts data from invoices, receipts, forms, and other documents, and transfers the captured data to other software in just one click.
Automating Email Responses
Automated email response software automatically replies to emails based on specific triggers or conditions.
For example, you can set up automated email responses to be sent when a customer makes a purchase, sends an inquiry, or subscribes to a mailing list.
These automatic responses can help you save time by reducing the need for human intervention, and can improve customer service by providing quick and efficient replies to common inquiries.
Popular email response automation tools:
- MailChimp – Mailchimp’s email automation capabilities allow businesses to create and schedule automated email campaigns and email responses based on specific triggers or customer behavior, such as abandoned cart reminders, or post-purchase follow-ups.
- Hubspot – This powerful tool has many uses, including creating and scheduling automated email campaigns, lead generation, and customer retention. Additionally, HubSpot’s analytics tools help businesses track and optimize the performance of their email campaigns.
Optimizing Inventory Management
Using software to track inventory levels in real-time can help you save money on carrying costs, such as storage and insurance, and prevent lost sales due to out-of-stock items.
Automated inventory management tools can also help you forecast demand more accurately, which can further reduce the risk of overstocking or stockouts.
By reducing inventory carrying costs and preventing stockouts, you can free up cash that can be reinvested in other areas of your business, such as marketing or product development. This can help you expand your operations and stay competitive even during difficult economic times.
Popular inventory management tools:
- Cin7 – a cloud-based inventory management solution that offers features such as real-time inventory tracking, multi-channel sales management, and automated order fulfillment.
- Zoho Inventory – a web-based inventory management system that provides stock management, order fulfillment, and inventory control software.
Automating Social Media Management
Manually monitoring your social media channels can be a real chore. Luckily, you can use social media automation tools to schedule, publish, and manage social media posts and interactions.
These tools can help you schedule posts across multiple social media platforms in advance, ensuring a consistent presence and freeing up time for employees to focus on other tasks.
They also help to monitor social media mentions, comments, and direct messages, allowing you to respond quickly and efficiently to customer inquiries and feedback.
Plus, many social media automation tools help businesses analyze and optimize their social media performance by providing insights into engagement, reach, and conversion rates. This information can be used to refine your social media strategies and improve the overall effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
Popular social media automation tools:
- Hootsuite – a social media management tool that helps you manage all of your social media accounts from one platform, including scheduling, publishing, and monitoring features. It also provides analytics and reporting capabilities to help businesses track their social media performance.
- AgoraPulse – a social media management tool that lets businesses schedule, publish, and analyze their social media content in one place, as well as monitor and respond to comments and messages. It also offers social listening and reporting features to track performance.
Using Data Analysis to Make Informed Decisions
Every business owner wants to increase their revenue, but it can be hard to know which areas of your business to focus on to do so.
You could just keep throwing spaghetti at the wall and hope something sticks, but that’s not exactly the most efficient way to run a business.
That’s where data analysis comes in. By analyzing the data you collect from your website and online interactions, you can gain insights into what’s working and what’s not.
Leveraging data and analytics can give you a deeper understanding of your customers, market trends, and internal operations. This information is like gold and allows you to make informed decisions and optimize your expansion efforts.
So how do you gather this information? Well, there are a ton of tech tools available to help you out.
For example, Google Analytics can provide valuable insights into your website traffic and user behavior. By tracking metrics like page views, bounce rates, and conversion rates, you can identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions about your website design and content.
Another way to use data analysis tools is by analyzing data from your advertising campaigns. This helps you gain insights into which channels and messaging resonate with your target audience, so you can optimize future campaigns and allocate resources more effectively.
Creating Minimum Viable Product (MVP) tests is another great way to gauge customer interest and demand before investing in new products or expanding into new markets. An MVP test is a process of testing a product’s core features with a small group of users to validate its viability. This way, you can gather feedback and data on your tests and make informed decisions about which products or markets to pursue.
Of course, you can also directly ask your audience what they want to see next through surveys and focus groups. This feedback can inform product development and marketing strategies.
And don’t forget about predictive analytics. By analyzing historical data and using statistical models, you can make predictions about future trends and outcomes. This information can be used to inform strategic decision-making and optimize operations.
There are many data analysis tools available to help you analyze your business data. Popular ones include Google Analytics, Tableau, Looker, and SEMrush.
Leveraging these data analysis tools is like having a crystal ball that tells you what your customers want and how to give it to them. And in the cutthroat world of online business, that kind of knowledge is worth its weight in gold.
Boosting Your Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
During a recession, customers may be hesitant to spend, so it’s crucial to focus on building strong relationships, providing value, and retaining your existing customers.
CRM software can help you achieve this by helping you to manage customer interactions and analyze behavioral data. By collecting and analyzing data from multiple channels like email, social media, and customer service, you can get a better understanding of your customer’s needs and preferences.
With this information, you can create targeted marketing campaigns, personalized offers, and improve your overall customer experience.
For example, CRM tools allow you to segment your customer list based on various criteria, such as purchase history, demographics, and interests. So, if you own a pet food ecommerce store, you can segment your list based on the type of pet your customers own (dog, cat, etc.) and send targeted promotions to each segment. You can send targeted emails with relevant offers, and promotions, or even recommend products based on past purchases.
Another way CRM software can help you stand out from the competition is by providing better customer support. Your customer service reps can access customer history and preferences, enabling them to resolve issues quickly and effectively, which leads to higher customer satisfaction.
CRM software can also help you manage your sales pipeline, prioritize leads, and close more deals. With marketing automation features, you can create targeted campaigns that are more likely to convert, thanks to insights into customer behavior and preferences.
This allows you to create special offers at certain funnel segments. You can use CRM to track where customers are in the sales funnel and send special offers or promotions to move them along. For instance, if a customer has abandoned their cart, you can send them a targeted offer to encourage them to complete the purchase.
There are many popular CRM tools out there, such as Salesforce, HubSpot CRM, Monday, Pipedrive, and Freshsales. Each one comes with its own unique set of features and functionalities, so be sure to do your research to find the one that best suits your business needs.
With the right CRM software in place, you’ll be able to drive expansion during a recession by increasing customer loyalty, improving sales efficiency, and identifying new sales opportunities.
Enhancing Your Marketing and Advertising
Technology has transformed the marketing and advertising landscape in recent years making it easier than ever to reach a wider audience at a lower cost.
With the rise of digital channels and the abundance of customer data, you also have access to a wider variety of tools and insights that can help you reach and engage with your target audience more effectively.
In the previous section, we touched on how email list segmentation can help you increase personalization by categorizing your customers and email subscribers using factors like demographics, interests, and buying behavior. This approach can increase open rates and click-through rates, leading to higher engagement and ultimately more sales.
Social media is another tool that has only become more powerful over the last few years. Social media advertising can help you reach a wider audience at a lower cost compared to traditional advertising methods.
Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter offer robust targeting options based on demographics, interests, and behaviors, making it easier for your ads to be seen by the right people.
The success of social media advertising also helped to give rise to influencer marketing, giving you yet another traffic source to tap into.
By partnering with influencers in their industry, you can leverage the influencer’s reach and credibility to reach a larger audience at a lower cost compared to traditional advertising channels. This can also help you build brand awareness and credibility among your target audience.
Finally, you can use technology to help you retarget potential customers.
Retargeting refers to showing ads to people who have already interacted with your website or social media profiles, increasing the likelihood of converting these potential customers into paying customers. By using cookies and other tracking technologies, you can target these potential customers with tailored ads that are more likely to convert.
As you can see, technology has opened up many new possibilities for entrepreneurs like yourself to reach and engage with customers at a lower cost.
By leveraging list segmentation, chat flows, social media advertising, influencer marketing, and retargeting, you can optimize your marketing and advertising strategies to drive more sales and revenue.
Use the Power of Tech to Recession-Proof Your Business
With a recession on the horizon, times will get tough. But that doesn’t mean it has to be the end of the road for your online business.
Utilizing CRM tools, marketing automation software, and other tech solutions keep you ahead of the curve and position your business for success.
Plus, improving your business’s stability will also help to improve the value of your business. So technology can not only help you increase your revenue in the short term but can lead to a more profitable exit in the future. That’s a win-win!
If selling is on your mind, use our free valuation tool to get an insight into how much your business is worth. And if you’re ready to get one step closer to a profitable exit, register an account on our site or speak to one of our expert business advisers for more information on our sales process.
