As a business owner, you want your company to grow and succeed. And there are numerous ways, tactics and strategies to get your company to the next level, but which ones you should you consider and is right for your business? We look at five things you should strongly consider to improve your business.
An Automated Product Return Feature
Any buyer will want an engaging and automated return experience if you have an eCommerce business model. eCommerce means you ship products to customers. You might also have brick-and-mortar store locations, but you make at least some of your sales through the mail.
If you set up automation for returns, that’s helpful because you can see any returns people make all in one place if they don’t like a product or it got to them in a broken condition. You can see when they put it back in the mail to you, so you will know when to expect it.
You can get notifications telling you when a returned item arrives. You can also let customers know through automatic notifications if you have any items with no-return policies.
You can even set up automated returns that come with analytic features to study. If you see patterns with customers returning particular items, you can revisit those items to see if you want to redesign or discontinue them.
A Skilled R and D Team
You will probably want to set up and fund a research and development team or department for your company. Maybe you’ll start with a few particular products or services. You’ll wait for those to catch on. Once they do, you’ll begin to generate some profit.
At that point, you can think about expanding your product lines. Very few companies want to stay with the same products or services year after year. That might bore your customers, and you want to keep them engaged.
Your R and D team should understand what products you’ll like and want to feature. If they don’t comprehend your company’s fundamental purpose, they won’t do you much good. That’s why you need creative minds in this area that know your vision.
A Reliable IT Department
You will also probably need a skilled IT department if you have at least a decent-sized company. IT stands for information technology. That’s a broad catchall term.
Your IT department members might handle all kinds of things. If you want to set up onsite servers, they can do that for you and maintain them. If you’re going to go to a cloud-based information model, you can talk to them about setting that up.
Your IT staff might set up security features for your computer network, such as password encryption, a firewall, antivirus software, or a VPN. If you don’t feel like you have enough money or IT work to justify an entire department, you can always go with an IT freelancer. That might be the more prudent move if you have a small company that doesn’t have a ton of regular IT requirements.
Smart Marketing Initiatives
You will want to focus on marketing as you attempt to get your business off the ground. Maybe you want to create TV commercials or radio spots talking about your company and what you offer. Perhaps you might focus on social media instead.
If you’re looking into social media marketing, you’ll need to do some market research to determine which platforms to use. If you know you have customers in a particular age group, you can use a social media platform that group prefers.
You might need to have some focus groups to figure out your ideal customer. Once you set up an ideal customer profile, you can market to them much more easily.
Funding
Every startup needs money, and you must figure out how to get that funding. Maybe you have enough in savings to fund the project yourself. If you feel strongly that you have a winning idea, you might sink all your savings into it accordingly.
If you don’t have any savings or not enough to start a company, you can look into getting a business loan. You can always approach a bank or a credit union and talk to them about your idea. If you can give them a business plan that convinces them you have a great idea, you can get your money that way.
If that does not work, you can look into a venture capital firm or an angel investor. However you get that money, you’ll need it to get the ball rolling on your startup.
