Month: October 2020

Email campaigns are important because research shows a large percentage of both adults and teenagers regularly use email. Running a successful email campaign can significantly contribute to customer interactions and generate sales in the long term. 

How to run a successful campaign?

• Know your goals: Email campaigns can serve various purposes including nurturing existing customers or welcoming new ones. The email itself should have content that is relevant to the purpose it is serving and encourages the recipient to take the intended actions. 
• Build a targeted email list: Your email list should contain customers who are interested in your products. A simple way to do this is to ask visiting customers, both online and in person, if they would like to receive emails about new products and sales. 
• Understand the types of emails: Promotional, relational and transactional emails each play a different role. Knowing what the purpose of these emails is will help build the email campaign to serve that purpose. 
• Know your audience: Use your data to understand who your customers are and what they are likely to be interested in. This will help curate email campaigns that will engage the customer. 
• Create engaging emails: The campaigns should be structured and designed in a way that they keep the customer connected. For example, if the campaign is promotional, the header should be eye-catching, followed by some of the best products, and finally, directed to the website where they can find other products in the promotion. 
• Plan emails and follow-ups: The content, purpose and goal of your email will determine the frequency of that campaign and whether follow-ups are required. Often, this requires finding a balance between reminding the customer of promotions or actions they need to complete, and not overwhelming them with emails. 

This holiday season is not going to be like any other. Preparing for how your business will tackle the change ahead of time will help maximise sales. 

• Maintain a human and compassionate approach in all customer communications: This will make your customers feel more comfortable and be pleasantly different to the technology-based interactions they are likely to have had due to the pandemic. 
• Use real-time data to understand buying trends and change the products that you focus on selling depending on this data: Using the data your business has access to in an effective way can be extremely helpful to plan advertising campaigns that are catered to your consumers and what they desire.
• Promote sales as early as possible: This gives customers an opportunity to spread out their buying and minimises in-store traffic closer to the holidays. This is especially important due to restrictions placed on the number of people that can enter stores. 

Considering the financial difficulties every business has experienced this year, it is important to take advantage of the holiday season where possible. These tips will assist your business in making use of the surge of buyers that is likely to occur.

Owning and running a small business often means that you are responsible for most or all of the tasks that need to be completed. Often, owners will find their time being entirely occupied with their business. This can take a toll on their mental health and cause work related stress. Which not only inhibits one’s ability to complete the duties of their role, but also puts them at greater risk of developing mental health conditions. 

Keeping work hours in check

Although it is tempting to focus on your business at all times, this can prevent individuals from participating in other activities which are important for physical and mental health. Business owners may feel motivated and enthusiastic to put extra time into their work, however, long work hours have been associated with poorer mental health, fatigue, burnout, worry, and irritability. 

Creating a work life balance by setting time limits on work hours might be a necessary precaution at the start. Taking breaks during the work day and setting time aside during the week will be extremely beneficial. 

Accessing support

Running a small business can often be isolating as there is rarely someone to share concerns of the business with. This will mean that owners are dealing with all of the issues on their own.

Discussing issues that arise with family or close friends can help reduce the feeling of being isolated. Alternatively, there are groups of small business owners who, and business mentors who may be able to understand and relate to what owners are experiencing, and potentially provide relevant advice. 

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle

A healthy lifestyle can help individuals manage stress and work towards improved mental health. This will also improve the ability to focus and concentrate when working. 

Developing good sleeping habits is a great way to kickstart this process. It can also be helpful to try different relaxation techniques such as meditation and exercise is an important start. Remember that this is a trial process, so trying different techniques to find the most effective one is essential.

Individuals often need to come together to form a team in order to successfully accomplish tasks in the workplace. Employers should aim to build team cohesion so that team members are co-operating and working efficiently. 

Employers should:

• Encourage regular communication within team members. Simplifying the communication process for individuals so that they can keep team members updated with relevant information is important. 
• Establishing a set goal and allocating specific tasks to each team member will ensure that the team is working towards the same endpoint without clashing in the responsibilities they take on.
• Identify and utilise individual strengths and weaknesses and assign responsibilities accordingly. This will provide individuals with opportunities to work on certain skills with other team members who might excel in them. 
• Conduct team-building activities to assess how certain members work with one another. This will be useful when forming teams and allocating tasks. 
• Create teams that have a diverse range of individuals and skills. Teams benefit from different experiences which may assist in responding to problems with creative and out-of-the-box solutions. 
• Celebrate team successes when the team accomplished their task. When a team works together to successfully complete a task, their individual and team efforts should be recognised. 

Building a team and ensuring that each team member is satisfied with their roles and duties within the team is an ongoing process. It requires employers to observe the team and how they are cooperating with one another, as well as engaging in regular communication with team members to assist with any issues that may arise.