Because most of our audiences are online, you should prioritise social media marketing at various stages of your business journey.

At the start-up phase, this is something you can do by yourself. You can easily establish an initial presence on social media platforms by engaging with potential customers. However, as you scale and expand your business, it can be more challenging to work on your social media marketing by yourself.

It’s at this point that you need to consider whether it’s time for you to hire a social media manager, whether as an in-house employee or a third-party provider. In this blog, we will discuss the importance of a social media manager as well as the signs that your business needs one.

What is a social media manager?

Some people have the misconception that social media managers just have fun scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, but their work is much more involved than that.

A social media manager is responsible for creating, managing, and publishing content for a brand’s social media accounts. 

Their responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Strategy development: This involves defining target audiences, setting objectives, and outlining strategies to achieve the social media and overall marketing goals of the business.
• Content creation and curation: They create original content and curate relevant content from other sources to share with followers.
• Posting and scheduling: Social media managers handle the posting schedule across various platforms to ensure consistent and timely content delivery. They may use social media management tools to schedule posts in advance.
• Community management: This involves engaging with followers, responding to comments and messages and fostering meaningful conversations. They also handle customer inquiries, feedback and complaints.
• Social media advertising: Planning and executing paid advertising campaigns on social media platforms to reach specific target demographics, promote products/services, and drive traffic or conversions.
• Analytics and reporting: They use analytics tools to monitor key metrics, track performance and provide regular reports to stakeholders.
• Stay updated with trends: Social media managers follow new developments in social media platforms, tools, and trends. They adapt strategies accordingly to leverage emerging opportunities and stay ahead of competitors.

As a business owner, it’s important to understand the gaps in your own skills and expertise. You must recognise when to delegate to employees or third-party providers who have specialised training. Hiring a social media manager is a good example of delegating one business area to a professional with specialised expertise.

5 signs it’s time to hire a social media manager for your business

We’ve shortlisted five indicators that you need an expert to manage your social media marketing.

1. You’re struggling to prioritise your social media

According to Sprout Social, 94% of leaders acknowledge that social media positively impacts brand loyalty. Meanwhile, 91% of business leaders agree that social data helps them gain a better understanding of customers.

It’s not surprising that business leaders recognise the importance of social media in achieving their branding and marketing objectives.

However, it can be challenging to prioritise social media marketing if it’s not your field of expertise or if you lack the time to develop it. 

Running a business involves numerous responsibilities, and business owners often prioritise tasks that directly impact operations, sales, and revenue. Social media marketing can be time-consuming, requiring consistent effort to create content, engage with followers, and analyze performance.

Having a social media manager can help you maximise the potential of your social media and use it to achieve your marketing goals.

2. You’re unsure which social media channel to use for your brand

It’s understandable if you feel pressured to use most, if not all, available social media platforms. However, it’s not advisable to do for your business. 

Choosing a select number of social media platforms can be more effective than trying all of them at once. 

Social media advertising can be highly targeted based on user demographics, interests, and behaviours. You can achieve better ROI by choosing platforms that offer robust advertising capabilities and align with your advertising goals.

Different social media platforms also attract different demographics and user behaviours. By selecting platforms where your target audience is most active, you can maximise your reach and engagement with the right demographics.

Each social media platform has its format and style of content that resonates with users. Tailoring content to fit the platform’s strengths (e.g. visual content on Instagram and professional updates on LinkedIn) ensures that the content is well-received and engages your audience effectively.

A social media manager can help you identify the best options for your business and how you can seize opportunities on specific social media platforms for your brand.

3. You can’t measure your social media performance

Tracking key metrics allows you to assess how well your social media efforts are performing in achieving specific objectives such as brand awareness, engagement, lead generation or sales. By analyzing metrics, you can determine what strategies are working and where improvements are needed.

Data from social media analytics also provides valuable insights into audience behaviour, preferences and trends. You can use this data to make informed decisions about content strategies, ad targeting, timing of posts and overall campaign optimisation.

Key metrics that can help you assess your social media performance and generate social data include:

• Engagement rate
• Amplification rate
• Audience growth rate
• Reach
• Impressions

A social media manager can diligently track these metrics and produce reports on your social content performance. This allows you and your social media manager to identify top-performing marketing initiatives and ways to improve your social media marketing strategy.

4. You can’t consistently create social media content 

Consistency affects social media growth and your overall branding and marketing goals. Posting on a regular schedule gives your audience something to look forward to, and it demonstrates that you are a dependable source of information on social media.

Consistent posting also reinforces your brand identity, allowing you to establish a recognisable presence and build trust with your audience over time. On a technical level, many social media algorithms favour accounts that post consistently. This can lead to higher reach and better visibility on users’ feeds.

However, as a business owner, you may have limited time to commit to a regular posting schedule for your social media platforms, given that you’re focused on developing your core competencies.

Your social media manager can create a posting schedule, as well as the necessary content, to ensure that your channels are consistently populated with content.

5. You want to build a brand community online

Nurturing customer relationships and acting on their feedback are just some of the ways to retain your existing customer base. This also extends to your social media platforms, wherein you can build thriving brand communities online.

A brand community fosters a sense of belonging among your customers. It encourages them to engage with your brand on a deeper level, leading to stronger emotional connections and increased loyalty.

Engaged followers are more likely to recommend your products or services to others. Positive word-of-mouth within the brand community can significantly enhance your brand’s reputation and attract new customers.

Your social media manager can help you build a brand community on your platforms and encourage an active audience base.

Overall, a social media manager enhances brand visibility, audience engagement and effectiveness in leveraging social platforms for business growth. 

Contact us and we will help you identify what you need for your business.

The post 5 signs it’s time to hire a social media manager for your business appeared first on Business Cut Through.

You might be wondering if it’s worth niching your client market segment when you already have a target customer in mind. However, discovering your niche can help you unlock exponential growth and customer loyalty whether you’re a startup entrepreneur or an established business looking to expand. 

While niche marketing can mean starting with a smaller market, it will gradually expand your audience base with more loyal customers, resulting in higher profit margins.

Identifying and cultivating that perfect niche where your business can stand out can be a daunting task. This blog will guide you through the process, offering valuable insights and actionable strategies to help you pinpoint your ideal niche market and thrive within it.

The power of niche marketing

Before diving into the how-to of finding your niche market, let’s understand the “why.” Niche marketing involves focusing your marketing efforts on a narrowly defined segment of the market. 

This targeted approach allows you to tailor your products, services and messaging to meet the unique needs and preferences of your chosen audience. 

There are numerous benefits to using niche marketing for your business:

• Reduced competition: By catering to a highly specific audience, you’re likely to face less competition, making it easier to stand out and establish a strong presence. This also allows you to channel your focus on capitalising on your efficiency as a business.
• Stronger customer relationships: Serving a niche enables you to deeply understand your target customer’s pain points and desires, fostering stronger connections and loyalty. Niche marketing also allows you to focus on the quality of service you provide, ensuring that your customers have an excellent experience with your business.
• Higher profit margins: Niche markets often allow for premium pricing due to the specialised nature of your offerings and the perceived value you provide.
• Focused marketing efforts: Your marketing efforts become more efficient and cost-effective when aimed at a well-defined audience more likely to convert. You can also cut costs on promotions because instead of casting your net too wide on your target audience, you have a more specific type of customer that you are targeting with niche marketing. 

7 steps to find your niche market

We’ve created a step-by-step guide you can follow to discover and cultivate your niche market. 

1. Self-reflection and industry analysis

Begin by looking inward. What are your passions, strengths, and expertise? Combining your skills with your passions can lead to a unique niche that resonates with you and your potential customers. 

Simultaneously, analyse your industry to identify gaps or underserved segments. Conduct a market analysis for your niche market. Research your competitors and their target audiences to uncover areas that might have been overlooked. 

A thorough analysis will give you clear answers to questions such as: 

• Who are my potential customers?
• What are my customers’ buying habits?
• How much are customers willing to pay for my product?

Your market analysis will also help you reduce risks, identify emerging trends in your field and enable you to project revenue. It also helps you contextualise past mistakes or errors you may have made in niche marketing for your business, allowing you to further sharpen your strategy moving forward.

2. Define your ideal customer

Niche marketing involves identifying and refining your target customer. Create a detailed customer persona representing your ideal customer. 

This involves identifying key segments such as:

• Demographics: Collect data on age, gender, income level, education and other similar demographic factors.
• Psychographics: This involves knowing your target customer’s values, interests, lifestyles and behaviours that influence their decision-making process.
• Challenges: Understanding your ideal customer’s pain points is essential for crafting a tailored value proposition.
• Goals: Identifying your target customer’s motivations and aspirations can help you discover how your business can grow alongside them, enabling you to adapt as your niche market evolves.

Having a clear understanding of your target customer can help you thrive in a niche market that values depth over breadth. Resonating with a specific demographic can help you build and maintain stronger customer relationships, which ultimately help you succeed as a business.

3. Market research

Thorough market research is key to identifying a viable niche. Use tools like Google Trends, keyword research tools (e.g., Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush), and social media listening to discover trending topics, search volumes, and conversations relevant to your potential niche.

4. Validate demand

Once you’ve narrowed down potential niches, validate demand. Are people actively seeking solutions related to your niche? Look for online communities, forums, and social media groups where discussions about your potential niche are happening. Engage in conversations to gauge interest and gather insights.

5. Solve a problem

Successful niches often address specific problems or pain points. It’s important to know how your businesses can effectively address problems with your products and services. Establish the need for the solution you provide, and visualise your desired outcome (i.e. how your customers and other beneficiaries are better off using your products or services). 

Once you’ve identified how your business solution can make your customers’ lives better, craft your messaging around this problem-solving aspect in your niche marketing.

6. Test and iterate

Before fully committing, it’s important to test your product with your chosen niche market. 

You can run three different types of product testing during the product development phase:

• Prototype testing: This serves as an early assessment stage in your product development. It allows you to put the prototype in the target user’s hands for their feedback. From their feedback, you can refine your product’s functionalities, identify potential flaws and validate your concept.
• Usability testing: The goal of usability testing is to confirm if your product is intuitive and easy to use. This enables you to improve the user interface and experience, allowing you to enhance the product’s overall usability. 
• Market testing: This involves releasing the product in real-world market conditions at a limited scale.  This could be a limited product release or a pilot service offering. Monitor customer feedback, engagement, and sales. Use the insights gathered to refine and optimise your approach.

7. Craft compelling content

Content marketing plays a crucial role in niche success. Create high-quality, relevant content that addresses your audience’s needs and interests. This not only establishes your authority but also attracts and engages your target customers.

Finding your niche market is an essential step towards business growth and sustainability. By honing in on a specific audience and understanding their needs, you can tailor your offerings and marketing efforts for maximum impact. Remember that niches can evolve, so stay attuned to changing market dynamics and be ready to pivot as necessary. 

With the right approach and persistent effort, you can discover and dominate your niche market, driving your business towards greater success. Contact us and we will help you develop your niche market.

The post Struggling to find your niche market? Here’s how to nail it! appeared first on Business Cut Through.

Podcasting is one way to interact with a large audience and puts your business on the radar to further increase brand visibility. As one of the most popular forms of media, podcasting provides businesses with the opportunity to engage individuals and convert them into customers.

There are many reasons for businesses to create a podcast. Podcasting can allow you to share valuable information and educate your listeners about the services you provide. It’s also a great way of building your brand image and directly connecting with your audience. 

Defining your business positioning will allow you to create a distinct branding and personality so that you can translate it seamlessly into your podcast. This ensures that you cultivate the right perception with your audience.

Why should you have a podcast?

Providing quality services and professional input is one thing, but being known for high-calibre content in the industry is another. Creating a podcast for your professional firm allows you to share insight into your business in a personal way, which fosters a bond between your brand and your listeners. 

Since the pandemic, there’s been a global feeling of isolation that begets the need for intimate connections, and podcasting fills this need. From the listener’s perspective, it’s also an easy type of media to consume, because they can listen to episodes while doing other activities. 

From your professional firm’s end, podcasting also adds the necessary human element that’s often missing from very technical practices. For example, if you provide accounting services to your customers, your podcast can feature interviews or panel discussions with accounting experts — this will allow you to make industry-related topics more accessible while helping your customers have a greater understanding of your practice. By adding a human touch to your practice, you retain the heart and warmth of your business, minimising the risk of your customers feeling removed and detached from you and the services you provide. 

Creating a podcast also has practical benefits, it increases your brand’s SEO ranking as you consistently create and share podcast episodes. You can use your podcast to find collaboration opportunities with industry experts and professionals, which can further expand your audience. Once your podcast starts growing and generating leads, it can also be a great opportunity to monetise your content, giving your business an additional stream of revenue. 

3 qualities of the best professional services podcast

While no two podcasts are the same, the most successful ones will have similar key traits. We’ve shortlisted three important qualities that you should incorporate into your podcast as you build your content.

1. Focus on value

Professional services provide a specialised kind of help to customers, so many of the most popular business podcasts are framed around what value they offer.

Whether it’s accounting, law or other specialised firms, professional services podcasts lead with insight into how they are distinct from other firms. There are different ways you can add value to your podcast, the most important is consistently including a compelling call-to-action at the end of every episode. This will allow you to maximise the usefulness of your podcast episodes and potentially convert your listeners into becoming customers (if they aren’t already). 

Highlighting topics related or relevant to your firm’s specialised services can also make your podcast more accessible to a wider audience, particularly if you present your services as the solution to relevant problems or challenges that your listeners are facing. 

2. Actionable input

Listeners tune into business podcasts because they want to gain information about a particular topic in a straightforward and convenient way. It’s also crucial for the business podcast to have the experience and credibility to back up whatever advice they give to their audience.

It’s best to extract key messages and themes for your podcast from how you operate your business. For example, if Business Cut Through were to have a podcast, it would include episodes about leadership, business strategy and client management — with the aim of supporting business leaders and senior executives in their journey.

By showcasing your expertise, you can give authoritative insights and suggestions that will enable listeners to make informed decisions and self-improvements in their own lives. Don’t be afraid to share the challenges and failures you’ve made in the past. This will only make the connection between you and your listeners stronger, building audience loyalty and trust in the long run. Sharing your past mistakes will also give you the opportunity to share ways you’ve bounced back to succeed.

Incorporating your opinions in each episode can also make your podcast more authentic and genuine while ensuring that it’s not monotonous or too dry, especially if the topics are technical. It will give your podcast a distinct voice and personality while allowing your listeners to look into your thought processes.

3. Consistent content

The most successful business podcasts have risen to the top because they consistently produce and share content on schedule while sticking to themes and topics that align with their branding.

Consistently creating podcast content requires strategy and discipline, especially since each episode needs to be pre-recorded and edited well ahead of time. Developing a content strategy and content goals can ensure that you stay on track with your podcast.

The most important performance indicators that apply to podcasts are:

• Brand awareness: Is your podcast generating interest on social media and within your industry?
• Engagement: Are listeners giving feedback about your podcast? Are they sparking conversations about your podcast on social media?
• Audience loyalty: Has your podcast seen an increase in listener subscriptions and following?
• Authority: Are you being recognised by your industry peers? Is your business podcast ranking higher online? 
• Media release: Has your podcast been mentioned on social media? Have you received opportunities to collaborate with other podcasts?

If you stick to a posting schedule, your listeners will learn to tune in at specific times and days because they trust that a new episode will be available by then. This will allow you to build audience loyalty and allow you to strengthen customer relationships.

Creating a business podcast comes with its own set of challenges, but it can be rewarding if you put work and effort into it. A podcast can add a warm, human element to your business and allow you to engage with customers on a personal level.

The first step to creating a business podcast for your professional services firm is building a distinct branding and online personality. Give us a call and we will help you develop your business voice.

The post Does podcasting work for professional firms? appeared first on Business Cut Through.

Despite an already comprehensive customer persona, your industry’s market can be further divided into different segments depending on what characteristics consumers share, the age range they’re in or the industry they work in. This is called niching or finding commonalities in your consumers that will best benefit from your product or service.

Niching, like any other good business strategy, has its own pros and cons. You can be more targeted with your marketing because of niching, for example, but you also risk alienating other possible customers who may benefit from your product or service. 

Establishing your target market is incredibly important as it helps you avoid having to handle difficult customers and find ones that will find your product or service the most helpful. 

Market segmentation and niching is one way to try and refine the group of customers you’re trying to cater to and, depending on your time and resources, it can be a strategy that can work for you and your practice. 

What is market segmentation? 

Market segmentation groups together certain customers depending on how they respond to a product because of their demographics. You can segment your market by determining your customers’ age, gender or even geographical location. What age range would benefit most from your product or service? Where would it be the most useful? What hobbies do these people have? Answering these questions will help you determine what segment you need to focus on. 

There are five types of market segmentation: 

• Demographic – These include observable differences such as age, gender and occupation.
• Firmographic – This is more for B2B firms that are trying to find other practices that may benefit from their products or services. This includes industry, turnover and profit as well as ownership.
• Psychographic – These include details such as your target customer’s hobbies, values and life goals.
• Behavioural – This includes how people interact with your products or services or even their browsing habits. 
• Geographic – This includes where your customers live, how dense the population is and even what kind of neighbourhood they live in. 

Market segmentation helps businesses further define their target audience, leading them to try to be more relevant to those demographics (for example: if their audience is made up of young adults, they won’t be talking about outdated technology or concepts–market segmentation makes this possible). 

When it comes to niching, you deep dive into these specific market segments even further to find even more specific problems in an already defined audience. For example, if your target audience is men in their early 20s who love biking, niche it further by dissecting what kind of biking they like to do. This can include mountain biking or casual city strolls. Finding that specificity will help you hone in on a subset of people that will directly benefit from your firm. 

Niching and how it gives you the upper hand in your industry because you find even more specific qualities in your already specific target market that you can focus on. 

The pros and cons of niching your market segment

Niching your market comes with some pros and cons–here are just a few of them.

Pro: More loyal customers

Because you’re engaging with a smaller group/audience, you have the opportunity to really focus on your relationships with your clients and nurture them. 

Since your product or service stands out to them, there’s a higher chance of conversion and sales compared to someone who’s just casually browsing. People are seeking out this product or service and feel like they’re being taken care of since the market is smaller and you can really focus on deepening the relationship. 

Customer loyalty is crucial because it secures the potential of turning a one-time customer into a full-time brand advocate. 

Loyal customers: 

• Spread the word about your firm
• Are repeat customers
• Are more likely to provide feedback

Con: Much smaller market

Omitting other customers may be detrimental to your business because some people who fall out of your target demographics may actually benefit from your product or service. However, because they don’t fit your niche customer persona, they might not be getting information about you or what you offer. 

Niching your market segment naturally means downsizing and limiting it to an even smaller group. You may overlook a certain demographic while trying to further narrow down your scope. 

With a smaller market, it may be difficult to secure their attention right away and you’ll likely have less frequent sales while you’re still trying to grow your business. 

Pro: Less competition

With fewer competitors vying for the attention of a niche market, you are able to beat out broader marketing strategies and go straight for your audience. Broader marketing is often hit or miss because they don’t cater to one group and are less likely to catch the attention of an overly broad audience. 

Broader marketing from your competitors either means that they can’t serve your audience or their efforts aren’t as compelling as yours because you serve a direct solution whereas theirs is more general. 

Con: More difficult to grow

When you’re just beginning your business, you don’t have the social proof necessary to convince your audience that you’re trustworthy and that you’re the solution they need. Others may take a leap of faith to try it out, but that’s not always guaranteed. It is a little more difficult to grow, especially in the beginning, and with a small audience, it can be hard to expand. 

You need to earn the trust of your very niche audience because, if you provide a product or service that promises to serve them or offer them solutions and it doesn’t, not only do you waste a lot of time, energy and money, you also potentially can’t hook them in another time. 

Pro: Higher profit margins

Not only are you able to save money because you don’t have to double or even triple your efforts to mass market, but you also have a much higher conversion rate because a smaller audience means a more focused one looking for particular products or services or solutions to their problems. 

Specialised needs mean there aren’t as many businesses that offer what you do, which makes people more inclined to spend a little extra for what you offer.

While niching your market segment can seem risky, it pays to remember that many business decisions come with risk. Niching your market is still something worth doing, as it will likely do more good than harm and lead you to effectively manage your clients since they share plenty of similarities.

Niching your market segment may come at a bit of a risk but every business strategy has its own challenges. If you want to do it right, give us a call. 

The post Is niching your client market segment really worth it? appeared first on Business Cut Through.

Unfortunately though, many managing partners and CEOs aren’t able to stay on top of the trends because of all the work they handle. Constantly juggling competing responsibilities at an internal level leaves limited time to focus on the big picture. 

If you’re unsure of what to prioritise this year, we’ve curated five areas that we believe take precedence in the digital age. Through these five areas, you’ll definitely see your business in a new light and open up opportunities to grow in 2021. 

Priority areas of focus for professional services in 2021

These points will touch on the five areas a managing partner or CEO should focus on in order to evolve. Each is crucial to growth and, when done all together, will bring you closer to an appropriate response to the changing times. 

1. Driving people growth, capability, and culture

Younger employees and company hopefuls are very different from your contemporaries. Millennials (and soon, Gen Z) make up a huge chunk of the workforce now and they’re more outspoken and driven by the need for a meaningful career. 

Because of this, creating a welcoming environment with a great team culture is crucial. Being able to trust this younger generation and leaving them to make their own leadership decisions (while still ensuring they’re prepared for the results of these decisions) empowers them, keeps them happy and increases retention rates as motivated and committed staff are more likely to stay. 

Invest in your employees. Make sure they feel they’re in an environment where they can grow, not one of pressure and constriction. Encourage them to be honest with how they feel about their work environment and make the changes you, as the managing partner or CEO, see fit. Building this kind of team culture ensures contentment and boosts productivity—after all, an inspired employee is a productive employee.

Once team culture is in place, you’ll be in a position to look to the long term and develop and implement strategies to identify important lateral hires and find acquisitions to bolster team skills, capacity and new business opportunities.

2. New product and service development

As business changes, so do the products and services that people find relevant and necessary. Use this time to reflect on what’s out there now and how you can either change your product or service, innovate or create new ones to satisfy demand. 

Create a strategy to sharpen your products or services to be more convenient, quicker, or even better-designed to overtake your competitors. Anything that makes your product or service more enticing will bring about a higher likelihood of sales as you’ll have an edge over your competitors. 

Just think of Apple. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak set out to design something simple for those who weren’t used to computers and now, Apple has become synonymous with high-quality design that people trust. Apple doesn’t just stop the design process when manufacturing starts, they take the product, review it, and then build it all over again. They try to dissect how they can make their product more valuable in the eyes of their customers. 

3. Building and maintaining key strategic partnerships

More often than not, creating and maintaining a relationship with other businesses can be tricky but, if done right, it can be mutually beneficial. Business to business (or B2B) partnerships, when strategic, can enrich your company while opening doors to another customer base or market. Strategic referral partnerships work by referring your company’s customers to your partner company’s and vice versa. But how do you ensure you can create a good alliance?

To gain strategic alliances, you must be able to identify exactly what the other business is offering you and why. Politely pepper them with questions about their product or service, what they’re looking for in a partnership, if they’ve had them before, etc. Review and assess their answers and see if you align with their values. 

And while you’re getting to know them and what they can offer, don’t forget they’re waiting for the same thing from you. They want to know you, what your unique selling point is, and what you can give them. It’s reciprocal. 

Encourage your team to network, as well, and to create meaningful relationships. Trust is the bedrock of cooperation. And, like with all leadership roles, make sure you take the initiative to network so your team can look to you as an example. Create strategic referral partnerships with companies that can benefit yours and help generate more leads. 

4. Building brand, positioning and communication

A big part of business coaching is telling our clients that they need to know their brand inside and out—even the parts that are often more conceptual. Company values are one of these things, people tend to brush over them because it’s difficult to tangibly experience them or harness them while working. But they’re crucial as they’re the pillars on which your company will operate.

Identifying your company values is the first step. Translating them into actions is the next. Have everyone come together and really dissect what your values are and what kind of behaviours are embedded into them. Is one of your core values being responsive to feedback? Discuss what actions meet that value head on. And when all is said and done ensure that these values and the behaviours you’ve extracted from them are accessible to everybody so that they adhere to them. 

Clients and staff are looking far beyond the money transaction. They’re looking for deeper social responsibility and ethics behind your brand. 

You must make sure your brand aligns with your positioning of your products and services in the marketplace. This is the key thing that differentiates your business delivery to that of your competitors. To make sure this happens effectively, the right communication channels are required at all levels throughout your business. This extends both internally through team communication right through to external marketing and client communication. 

5. Technology advancements and opportunities to innovate

We’re hurtling further and further into this technological age with breakthroughs happening left and right. There’s no point running from how it’s affecting how everything operates—even business. Instead of shying away from it, we encourage you to embrace these new tech developments and strategically use them to your advantage.

Study other industries and see how they’re employing technology in their day-to-day operations. Have they transformed anything to automation? Have they used it to better understand the digital landscape? How can your company do the same—or even better?

Find new technological advancements that quicken processes and make things more efficient, especially for finances. Finance can be very tricky as it requires accuracy and precision. Technology can help achieve said precision and even interpret that very data so your company can infer if you or your clients are doing well financially at a glance. It’s quick, efficient, and it is less likely to be errant because of the automated processes that go into them. 

These five areas of focus may be intimidating to go through all by yourself but with the right business advisor, we know you’ll be able to move forward. Business advisory and coaching is all about helping you expand your vision and helping you make the best of your business. 

We’ve been business advisors for more than 20 years in the professional services industry and we’d love to help you with these five areas if you’d like to change focus in 2021. Reach out to us to learn how you can implement these five things this year.

The post Top 5 things a professional services firm must focus on in 2021 appeared first on Business Cut Through.

As we look to the year ahead, 2021 will surely present us with many more challenges, but with so much happening, will marketing your business be harder in the new year?

According to a survey done by Dun & Bradstreet, 70% of business respondents revealed that their marketing budgets have been reduced as a direct result of COVID-19. It was also uncovered that 76% of marketers were experiencing an “increasing amount of pressure to deliver leads since the COVID -19 outbreak”. With such financial loss that businesses have endured, it is no surprise that marketing budgets have taken a hit. This has caused a focus shift from new sales to retention. Return on investment has become the priority for many business owners as they need to ensure that they are gaining the most out of their spending. This increases the pressure placed on advertisements, promotions and sales to perform.

Not only will budget cuts present new challenges for marketing, but the inability for businesses to interact with their customers like they used to will also prove to be a hurdle. With so many regulations and restrictions that this virus has brought forward, companies are no longer able to host large marketing events like they used to. Many organisations can also only host a certain number of people in their place of business, making it difficult to engage new clients and operate smoothly.

For small businesses, it will be very difficult to engage new audiences without the marketing budget that they are used to. However, there are many ways to work around a low budget if you put your mind to it. Alternative marketing solutions could include developing new mutually beneficial strategic relationships with other like-minded businesses to recommend each other. You could also lean in to your current clients and look into getting meaningful referrals for your business. Another option is to consider if you need the assistance of an outsourced marketing agency to help you with fresh ideas and new marketing tools and techniques to assist your growth.

Nobody knows what lies ahead, but taking time to create flexible plans will help you stay on top of any new challenge in the year to come.

The post Will Marketing Your Business Be Harder In 2021 And Why? appeared first on Business Cut Through.

It’s time to take your brand definition into your own hands and create the perfect position in the minds of the consumers you want your business to have. Taking it into your own hands also means stepping into the shoes of your consumer. How do they see you? What makes them choose you over others offering the same thing? 

When defining your business position, you need to think beyond your primary product or service. This is where value comes into play. Value is the intangible elements of your business that builds your customers perception of you. It’s all the bells and whistles that will ultimately determine whether you get chosen for the job. This could be the service you offer, the extras and benefits, the loyalty points, the ease of attainment and so many other things more relevant to your industry. Value is not always built on price; it is built on the way your customer can be satisfied with your business and what you provide over your competitors. 

If you want to take control of your brand perception, it’s important to consider these few things:

1. Other than my product, what is my customer really gaining from my business?
2. What do I offer that my competitors don’t and how do I use that to my advantage?
3. What makes my business unique?

Answering these questions should take some solid market research to ensure you are not only using your own preconceived ideas of your competitors. You can also ask your own consumers why they choose you and what specific elements of your business satisfies them. With this information, you will start to piece together a brand image, add some extra fine details and ensure you climb your way to the top of the positioning hierarchy.

The post How do you define your business positioning? appeared first on Business Cut Through.

This has always been the case, but it is a lesson every business owner should hold in the forefront of their mind now as COVID-19 presses the world into a new era, with a zeitgeist shaped by the shadow of this pandemic. 

It’s worth taking a moment to further explore the definition of zeitgeist here. By zeitgeist, I do not mean a trend or a fad. Trends are usually a source of public curiosity or entertainment that is superficial and fleeting. When marketing strategies are solely shaped around trends they are flimsy, short lived. At best, they offer a brief boost in revenue and at worst they are a PR disaster that causes permanent brand damage. By contrast, zeitgeist literally translates as ‘spirit of the times’ and is something that transcends sources of public curiosity and entertainment to encapsulate the broader spirit or mood of an extended period of time. Marketing strategies that are able to tap into the zeitgeist speak the language of consumers and offer a transformation that aligns with their deepest values and desires.

 An example of marketing which latched onto a trend  but failed to tap into the zeitgeist is the disastrous 2017 Pepsi advertisement featuring Kendall Jenner. The ad latched onto the key trend elements of the model of the moment and the popularity of performative activism, but it failed to encapsulate the zeitgeist which was characterised by a push for increased socio-political awareness through movement such as Black Lives Matter. The fallout for both Pepsi and Jenner was enormous, with the brand dropping to its lowest levels of consumer perception in 10 years and taking nine months to recover. 

Instances like this one, where brands pivot on trends understandably make business owners nervous about adapting their pre-existing strategies to suit changing times and events. Previously, taking a conservative approach has proved effective, as whilst trends come and go in a matter of weeks or months the zeitgeist traditionally changes incrementally over years or even decades leaving plenty of time to adjust your marketing strategy. Not so with the latest shift. Life under COVID-19 exploded out of the blue like a trend in the sense that one week we were catching up with friends in restaurants saying ‘it’s just a flu’ and the next we found ourselves sheltering in our homes and becoming experts on data projections of the infection rate. However, enormous changes we have experienced under COVID-19 are not a temporary trend but a marked change in the mood and spirit of our times. With the pandemic we have entered into a state of hypervigilance, community consciousness and survivalism. These are the qualities which will define our lives for the foreseeable future, regardless of how the pandemic plays out. These are the characteristics of the new zeitgeist and interestingly, they contrast sharply with the complacency, virtue signalling, and hedonism which was the dominant cultural narrative just a few months ago. 

In these circumstances, it’s crucial that businesses revisit their marketing strategies and pivot as quickly as possible to align their offerings and brand language with the changed zeitgeist we now find ourselves in. There are very few instances in business where caution should be thrown the wind, but this is one of them. If businesses don’t adapt, then they will almost certainly be perceived by consumers to be not only out of touch, but cruelly indifferent to the needs of the community.  

If the thought of a complete strategy overhaul seems overwhelming, my recommendation would be to engage with a senior marketing consultant or even a crisis communications specialist to evaluate your existing strategy and make clear recommendations that you can sit down with your team and determine what is affordable.  Then if you are unable to implement immediately, indicate to your client base that you are working on it.  I cannot stress enough the importance of transparent communication during this time. Utilise your digital channels and focus on inbound marketing to consistently communicate with your community. 

If you need more information or advice please contact me to discuss how I can support your business during this crisis. 

The post Now is the time to pivot appeared first on Business Cut Through.