Having an online business is great if you love the freedom it gives you, and all the processes are in place to automate your marketing and sales.
If you are still using traditional methods of accounting, and employ contractors to complete different jobs, you should think through all your operating expenses and look for ways of getting more value for your money.
If you want to reduce the cost of running your online business, read our tips below.
#1 Get a Customer Management System Set Up
To save on customer service overhead costs, you might want to set up a customer management software on your website, allowing your clients to manage their accounts themselves and submit support tickets.
You don’t want to pay somebody to sit in an office on the other end of the phone if you can solve the problem for only a few pounds a month.
This way, you only need someone to go through the support tickets once or twice a day and answer customer queries.
#2 Shopping Cart Software
Image by Wikimedia Commons
To automate your sales, you will need to talk to your website service provider to create a shopping cart software that allows customers to buy and pay for their goods and services.
You will save a lot of money and improve customer satisfaction at the same time. A shopping cart software can also be linked to your online business suite, such as Microsoft 365 Business, so you don’t have to manually enter each item to your bookkeeping database.
You will save on accountant costs and get a better understanding of your venture’s financial health.
#3 Save on Hosting
You might want to compare the hosting prices offered by your current provider with other deals, to make sure you are not paying too much.
If you have a customer management software installed, and a blog, you are likely to require database hosting, as well as security suites.
Make sure you get the best deals on your website management, and you can save hundreds of pounds each year.
#4 Use SEO Instead of Paid Ads
Paying for your advertising is a significant cost in your business.Always measure the return on investment, and check if it is worth running the campaigns.
If you have a search engine marketing company running your campaigns, and they cannot show you enough conversions, you might want to try search engine optimization, which is cheaper and gives you long-term results.
#5 Ask Bloggers to Give You Publicity Instead of Paying for News Feature Articles
If you regularly pay for press release articles and magazine feature articles, you might be wasting money. Instead, try free press release sites and ask bloggers to try and review your product or service.
You will only have to provide them with a review copy and basic information, and they can get your brand noticed by their followers.
Running a business can be expensive if you don’t take a step back and review different areas that can be improved. Stop paying for underperforming advertising campaigns, and take advantage of free methods to improve your brand awareness.
Take advantage of cloud technology to automate your business processes.
