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5 Marketing Mistakes That Can Impact Your Cash Flow

Category: Growth Hacks

5 Marketing Mistakes That Can Impact Your Cash Flow
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

5 Marketing Mistakes That Can Impact Your Cash Flow

For any business, cash is the lifeline and therefore, it is important to ensure that the business is fed with a consistent supply of funds and the chances of liquidity crunch are minimized. Cash flow management is essential for the long term survival of a business, as lack of fund at the required time may force an organization to go out of business. Here are some of the common marketing mistakes which can cause a business to struggle with its cash flows. The possible remedies for them are also stated below.

  • Failure to Identify Unique Selling Point: A unique selling point or USP not only allows a business to stand apart from the crowd but also forces them to fully comprehend the utility and the benefits of their products and services. This exercise may also allow them to position their product in the market in a better manner. However, failure to identify the USP can jeopardize your products and even your business’s future. If you are using a generic selling point, you are losing out on attracting a loyal customer base and thus hurting your cash flows.

You can fortify your cash flows by undertaking thorough analysis of your product and identifying the unique features associated with it. These unique points may in the form of features, functions or even location of the product.

  • Failure to Manage Costs: While the effective marketing of products may require substantial outlay of funds, unwarranted spending is no guarantee of marketing success. It is important that expenses incurred for marketing the products and services are carefully monitored to ensure that overall cash outflow remains on the conservative side. Further, the expenditure on any marketing activity should be justified by the revenue generated by it.

In order to maintain proper cash flow, a business should periodically evaluate its marketing strategies to identify the practices which are not yielding desired returns. Businesses should also note that increase in the number of customers does not automatically translate to higher cash flows as costs associated with such increase may be higher than the marginal revenue generated.

  • Failure to Collect Dues: You may employ strong marketing tactics to ramp up your revenue, but all your efforts are in vain if your business is not able to collect these revenues in a timely manner. If your marketing strategies are generating additional sales but the proceeds are not collected, then essentially your resources are tied up in unproductive avenues, soaking away the liquidity from your business. Such hold up of funds points to inefficient cash management practices.

Hence, businesses or firms should strive to collect unpaid dues on a regular basis. However, it should be noted that a proper balance between retaining clients and collection of funds is essential.

  • Failure to Vet Clients: Good marketing practices may bring you new customers, but it is essential that you properly vet these clients to ensure that they are of good credit standing. If you are more concerned about quantity than quality, then your marketing strategy might backfire as your business may not be able to extract funds lying with the clients.

In order to ensure that your business remains liquid and viable, you should carefully analyze your potential clients to ensure that your sales actually translate into liquid funds for your business.

  • Failure to Provide for Surprises: You may devise the most efficient marketing strategies, but if you do not account for unexpected changes in your internal and external environment, then you run the risk of compromising your cash flows. You should not only account for any possible changes in circumstances within your organization but also for potential changes in factors which are beyond your control. While you may not be in a position to exercise any control over such factors, you can certainly provide the safeguards against their impact on your business.

It is important to be future oriented while designing marketing strategies so that the impact of changes on cash flows can be adequately anticipated.

Profitability and smooth cash flows are the keys to a successful and sustainable business. By paying attention to the above pointers for charting out the future marketing course of action, you can ensure that your business does not suffer from cash crunch and remains well funded.

5 years ago
What Does the PayTabs Payment Platform Mean for Your Business?
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

What Does the PayTabs Payment Platform Mean for Your Business?

Online payment gateways are vital for the smooth functioning of e-commerce companies. Without this service, e-businesses would not be able to able to accept and process payments from their clients, thus jeopardizing the growth of their operations. It is highly crucial that internet businesses pick their payment gateway providers with utmost care as any snag in such services may cause massive losses to not only the business itself but also to its clients. With PayTabs, you can ensure that you get the best services at just the right price. Following are some of the ways in which PayTabs can help you in boosting your business efficiency.

Integrated Services: PayTabs offers a one-stop solution for your payment processing requirements. Its system is highly adaptive so as to ensure that you are able to customize the operations to meet your requirements. The service can be easily integrated with your website and provides seamless offerings. The system allows you to accept payments in 168 different currencies, making it highly recommended for businesses with cross-border operations. It also comes with a smart dashboard so you can manage different parts of your online business from one centralized place. This dashboard will help you in achieving efficiency as now you can take a quick glance at your different business operations in one place.

Safe and Fast: While deciding on an online payment system, it is important to ensure that it provides encrypted and secured payment processing. This is because online payments involve the exchange of highly sensitive information including bank details, credit card numbers and private identification details. PayTabs is PCI DSS certified, which means that the system provides secure processing services. The system also has anti-fraud measures in place so that you can carry on your business without worrying about falling for scams etc. Owing to its transparent operations, PayTabs has emerged as one of the most reliable online payment processing systems around.

Scalable: Businesses do not remain static, and rather evolve over a period of time. The mark of a good online payment system is one that can grow with your business, with minimal disruption in the operations. The PayTabs system is mainly designed for small and medium enterprises and so is ideally suitable for startups and budding businesses. However, it is also flexible enough to accommodate your requirements when your enterprise has grown to the next level. PayTabs offers straightforward payment systems which makes the transaction process simple and convenient for your clients.

Economical: Online payment processing systems are currently in the growth stage and are being equipped with new features every day. While it is important that your payment processor provides state of the art and modern services, it is also vital to keep the cost factor in mind. Different payment gateways offer different kind of fee plans. PayTabs aims to provide the best possible services at the optimal costs to its clients and therefore offers customizable payment plans. The fees paid to PayTabs covers a wide range of expenses such as set up fees, recurring fees and support fees. The pricing of PayTabs is entirely transparent so that you know beforehand how much you need to pay. With PayTabs, you can avoid facing hidden and surprise charges.

Value Added Services: While the main task of an online payment gateway is to process payments, but these providers may also offer a host of allied services. PayTabs strives to provide a holistic experience to its clients and thus offers different promotional schemes frequently. The payment system collaborates with a wide range of merchants and businesses so as to offer a wide array of value added services to its clients. Such value added services vary from discounted pricing to specialized outreach programs. Your business can benefit immensely from these professionally designed targeted services. With PayTabs, you not only provide the best services to your clients but also grow your business using unparalleled offers provided by the payment gateway.

PayTabs has grown exponentially in a short period of time. With its wide reach and customer centric business model, PayTabs has carved a niche for itself in a highly competitive market. You can also make your business grow with the help of PayTabs and its specialized bouquet of services.

6 years ago
Top Tips to Increase your Online Sales
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

Top Tips to Increase your Online Sales

Achieving strong top line by growing online sales is one of the biggest targets for any business. Whether you are running a small shop or a complex high profile enterprise, the optimal utilization of online channels may help you immensely in achieving this target. Here are some of the pointers which you need to pay attention to for ensuring that your revenue sees substantial upside.

  1. Boost Your Leads: Leads are simply the visitors to your website who have shown their interest in your offerings. The main characteristic of a lead is that they provide you with personal data, their contact details and their consent to send them more information. If you are looking to boost your online sales, then it is important that you fully utilize the leads available to you. Some of the most important methods for accumulating such leads are through email subscriptions, online contact forms or website registration. Whatever is the source of these leads, you can use these to achieve your target of higher sales. Further, the information collected through this route may also help you in your analytics program and aid the process of making more informed marketing strategies.

 

  1. Focus on Conversion Rate: While the exact definition of conversion rate would depend on the outcome you expect, but in this case it may be described as the number of visitors to your website who actually end up purchasing the product or the service. So, while you should aim to increase the number of leads or visits to your page, you should also endeavor to convert such leads into actual revenue. This ratio will also help you determine the quality of website traffic generated by your marketing efforts. There are a number of actions you may take to improve the conversion rate. These actions include changing the layout of your website among other things.

 

  1. Control Your Bounce and Exit Rate: Analytics may help you in determining bounce and exit rate for your websites. Both these metrics point towards the existence of different issues with the shopping experience at your website. Bounce rate is the percentage of people who leave your site after visiting just one page while exit rate refers to the percentage of visitors leaving your website from a specific page, irrespective of the number of pages visited by them. Such bounce and exits are wasted opportunities which could have been converted into revenue with appropriate actions. It may be useful to undertake detailed analysis approach to unearth the reasons behind high bounce and exit rates.

 

  1. Simplify your Website: The design and layout of your website is an important factor which can have heavy impact on different metrics such as conversion rate and bounce rate. A large portion of such exits and bounces are due to confusing website layout and complicated processes. While it may seem counterintuitive, but providing relatively lesser options may help in keeping things simple for the visitors. It should also be ensured that the visitors are not required to follow complicated procedures for checking out and making payments. Simple website and checkout processes are vital for achieving high conversion rate as these are easier to navigate.

 

  1. Provide Call to Action: A Call to Action (CTA) is the element which urges the visitor to undertake a specific act or step. It may range from ‘Subscribe Now’ to ‘Buy Now’ appeal, depending upon the main aim of the business. However, in all such cases, the personalized Call to Action tends to bring about the best results. A customized CTA highlights the relevance of the product or service to the customers’ needs and therefore is more likely to be successful in achieving its target. It is important to avoid using jargons or generic CTA buttons. Such personalization may be done by changing the language or by modifying the content of the page.

 

These pointers are some of the most important steps you can take to enhance your online traffic and revenue. However, depending upon your business objectives, several other courses of actions may also be useful for you. The key is to identify and analyze the unique features relevant to your business and then work on them to hit higher targets.

6 years ago
What is Important for Startups – Products or Sales?
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

What is Important for Startups – Products or Sales?

Whether a business should focus on perfecting its products or on boosting sales is the eternal question faced by entrepreneurs. The dilemma has given rise to the concept of Minimum Viable Product or MVP where instead of trying to wait until the product is in faultless stage, the business decides to market it and continues with the improvement process. Here are some of the thoughts to help you decide whether your business should strive for the perfect product or for higher sales.

  • Focus on Product: It is believed that a large number of companies fail due to different factors related to their products or services. In many cases, the companies launch products nobody had demanded. In other cases, the product may simply not be up to the mark, that it may not serve the function it claims to serve. Therefore, it is important to understand the market and its requirements. The business should then focus on developing a product which can meet the market needs in an efficient manner. The firm may decide to launch the product with certain key features and then may continue to fine-tune it. For startups, product improvement is a continuous, never-ending process.

 

  • Work on Value Added Services: As important as it is to get the product just right to fulfill customers’ requirements, it is also imperative that proper attention is paid to allied services such as logistics, after sales care, etc. For startups, liquidity and funds are highly crucial factors, forcing business to release the product as early as possible. In such cases, the enterprise may enhance customers’ utility by providing them with value added services. Empathetic customer care services can lead to higher customer satisfaction by addressing several concerns and issues. With the help of add-on services, the business may be in a position to launch the product at an early stage and still gain loyal following.

 

  • Business Life Cycle Stage: The decision regarding the product launch is dependent on several factors including the life stage of the business. For a startup, cash inflows are highly important as these enterprises are generally dependent upon outside funding for carrying out their operations. For early stage ventures, it is a matter of survival to get a product in the market so that a steady stream of revenue may be generated. This stream is then used for meeting various expenses of the organization. So, while a mature business may delay the launch of the product till it is perfected, new and fledgling organizations are bound to follow the concept of Minimum Viable Product.

 

  • Test the Market: As a young business, you might be tempted to get your product out in the market. However, apart from the product and its features, it is also important to gauge the maturity of the market. This implies that the market should be ready for the product. Any product, if launched in a pre-mature market, is bound to fail. One of the biggest examples in this regard is the various early attempts made by technology companies to launch smartphones. However, these launches failed as the markets were not mature enough to accept smartphones. Further, the infrastructure required for proper functioning of the phones was also not available. Therefore, ensure that the market is ready for your product.

The crux of the discussion is that a startup requires both a perfected product and sales revenue. It is the striking of balance between these two goals which ensures the long term survival of an organization.

6 years ago
5 Online Mobile Shopping Best Practices to Improve Customer Experience
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

5 Online Mobile Shopping Best Practices to Improve Customer Experience

Mobile internet has disrupted e-commerce segment as more and more people are now shopping on their phones and tablets. This change has brought about several new opportunities as well as challenges. In order to ensure that your clients get the best services whether they access your website on a desktop or on their mobile phones, you should pay attention to the factors illustrated below.

  1. Intuitive Design: The design of the website should be in sync with the device and the platform to be used. While many businesses choose to design one type of website for all types of mobile devices, you may decide to have different designs for mobile phones and tablets. While the latter option may incur higher expenses, it will also provide better experience to the customers. An ideal e-commerce website should also avoid unnecessary menu and buttons to keep the interface simple. The navigation system of the website should be intuitive so that the visitors remain interested and complete the transaction. The process should also be as short as possible, with minimal number of clicks involved. The main idea is to seal the deal before the visitor lose their interest and move away from the website.

 

  1. Choose Your Content Carefully: Mobile devices such as phones and tablets have limited screen real estate. Therefore, it is highly important to use this carefully. You should prioritize and carefully choose the content to be presented on the mobile website. Apart from the choice of the content, the presentation of the data is also of importance. The most essential information needs to be presented in the most prominent manner so as to facilitate the process of decision making of the visitor. For example, instead of cramming a large number of items on the homepage, carefully select the products and services to be featured there so as not to overwhelm the visitors. Further, you should also make judicious use of pictures as they tend to convey the information in a more direct manner.

 

  1. Involve the Visitors: Incorporating suggestions from the visitors is an ideal way to make a customer centric website. This step may also be helpful in personalizing the website as per the requirements of customers. For this purpose, it is important to design the in-app message the right way so that the visitors immediately identify with the content of the website. This will also help the organization in brain storming about their target market and identifying this market’s distinctive features. Another important step in this direction is to incorporate customers’ testimonials and reviews on the website. This feature will help other prospective customers in making informed decisions. Also, the visitors should be encouraged to provide feedback and suggestions about the website and its content.

 

  1. Value-Added Features: designing an attractive website is important but it is also important to make it more customer friendly with the help of other value-added services and features. The website should be optimized in such a way that it uploads on the device in a fast manner. Slow uploading may impact the customer experience negatively. Apart from faster loading, the website may also incorporate other features such as live chat facility, which may help in resolving customer issues in a prompt manner. It is also advisable to design an appropriate FAQ page or section so that the visitors are able to troubleshoot on their own.

 

  1. Evaluate and Improve: Mobile website development is not a one-off process. It needs to be continuously evaluated and improved upon. You can use different metrics to evaluate the efficacy of your website. There are several analytical tools which may help you in measuring various features such as customer retention, app usage, and the number of downloads. It is also advisable to carefully track app reviews and ratings so as to take appropriate remedial actions. You should collect data with regard to average visit length and frequency as well. Continuous learning and tweaking are the key to providing the best services to visitors.

 

As the competition in mobile segment grows, it is becoming highly important for the businesses to make their presence felt through the use of mobile websites and apps. The judicious use of these tools may help you grow your business exponentially.

6 years ago