Month: October 2020

Bounce Rate Analytics: How to Measure, Assess, and Audit to Increase Conversions

Your bounce rate can be such a scary number, right? It’s common knowledge that a high bounce rate is bad, and a low rate is good. Every time you log into your Google Analytics account, it’s right there waiting for you. I understand the feeling when you see that number creeping up. But the problem is …

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New comment by TJLeahy in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2020)"

Remote Go Developer We are looking for a backend engineer to help craft the future of Teamwork Desk. We are a self-funded and privately owned Irish company with employees all over the world. Check out our role here: https://careers.teamwork.com/jobs/backenddesk

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New comment by doshlord in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (October 2020)"

Location: USA – Peru, IL Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: Yes Technologies: C#, C, C++, Python, Git, HTML, Perl, Golang, Scala, Actionscript, and more Résumé/CV: http://realnigga.club/word0day.docx Email: killaklown@memeware.net Professional hacker, welder, and programmer. My name is George. I’m a generalist with deep knowledge in content marketing, analytics, and BBC. Make sure to run Word as …

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How to Get a Free Credit Report Sample

Your business credit isn’t the only thing that affects your ability to get funding.  Still, it is a huge piece of the pie. One way to see your business credit and get a feel for where you stand is to get a credit report sample.

A Free Credit Report Sample Can Help You Know Where to Start with Funding and Fundability

Unlike your personal credit report, you can’t really get a free copy of a business credit report.  However, you can get a sneak peak in some cases with these options. 

Nav

So, Nav is a service that will let you see a credit report sample from all three of the major credit reporting agencies.  But these are only summaries, not full reports.  Generally, that means you can see your score, and maybe the accounts you have listed.  While this will help you get your bearings, it will not suffice for the purpose of correcting mistakes or even to show you what you need to do to improve your score. You do have the option to pay for more information though.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring. 

Credit.net

Similarly, Credit.net will let you see a credit report sample with their free trial.  There is no credit card required.  Also, after you pull the report, you have 30 days to check it out. As a result, at least once you can get a totally free look at your report.  Since there is no fear of missing a cancelation deadline and having to pay anyway, it’s a great option. 

Scorely 

Scorely offers you a credit report sample before you pay for an ongoing subscription.  In contrast to Nav or Credit.net, they actually calculate their own score similar to the big 3:  Experian, Equifax, and Dun & Bradstreet. They strive to be totally transparent and to make their reports easy to understand. 

CreditSafe

You do have to pay for an ongoing subscription to CreditSafe.  However, they will give you a credit report sample to get you started.  Also, they have a number of reports that are unique to them.  This means you are getting something that you may not get with the other monitoring services or even the standard reports from Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, or Equifax. 

How To Read Your Credit Report Sample

In truth, each reporting agency offers different types of reports and information. Similarly, they all contain the same general data.  You need to understand what your credit report sample says, whichever agency it is from, about your business.

Dun & Bradstreet

Dun & Bradstreet offers several different types of business credit reports.  In fact, there are six different reporting options in all.  They all offer different information related to credit worthiness, and it takes all of them to get the whole picture.  The price range listed above is dependent on which reports you want to order. 

The report most use is the PAYDEX.   This is likely because it is the easiest to understand, due to it being the most like the consumer FICO score.  It measures how quickly a customer makes payments and ranges from 1 to 100.  Scores of 70 or higher are acceptable.   For example, a score of 100 shows payments are made in advance, and a score of 1 indicates that they are 120 days late, or more. 

The other Dun & Bradstreet Credit Reports include:

  • Dun and Bradstreet Delinquency Predictor Score

The delinquency predictor score measures how likely it is that the company will not pay, will be late paying, or will fall into bankruptcy.  The scale is 1 to 5, and a 2 is good.

  • Financial Stress Score

The financial stress score measures pressure on the balance sheet.  It shows how likely the company is to shut down within a year.  These scores range from 5 to 1, with a score of 2 being a good thing. 

  • Supplier Evaluation Risk Rating

This rating ranks the odds of a company surviving 12 months.  The minimum score is a 9 and the maximum is 1.  A “good” score is 5. 

  • Credit Limit Recommendation

The credit limit recommendation reflects a business’s borrowing capacity.  It is a recommendation for how much debt a company can handle. Typically, creditors use this to determine how much credit to extend. 

  • D&B Credit Rating

This one ranks overall business risk on a scale of one to four.  A score of 2 is good.  The rating is given in conjunction with letters, the combination of which indicates a company’s net worth. 

Even if there isn’t enough information on a business to assign a regular rating, Dun and Bradstreet will assign what they call a Credit Appraisal Score.  This is based on the number of employees. Another option is an alternative rating based on what data is actually available.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring. 

Experian

Experian’s uses what it calls Intelliscore as its credit ranking.  There are more than 800 different factors that they use to predict a company’s credit risk. With Intelliscore, a score of 76 or higher indicates a low risk of default or late payment. If a score falls between 51 to 75, it indicates a low to medium risk.  Scores from 26 to 50 are medium risk, and from 25 down to 1 is medium high to high risk. 

Here is where Experian gets tricky. Intelliscore is a blended score of both the business and business owner’s personal information.  That means it offers insights into a business’s public record findings, collections, and payment trends, as well as overall business background. Experian is also unique in that it does not ask businesses to self-report.  Instead, they collect all the information themselves. You will have to give permission for a lender to view this report, due to it containing personal information.

Equifax

Equifax collects information similar to Dun and Bradstreet, including: information from public records, financial data from the business, and payment history from creditors.  Credit utilization is also a factor, which accounts for how much credit you are using versus the amount of credit you have available to use.

The information is used to calculate various scores, including the business credit risk score and the business failure score. The first measures how likely it is that a business will become 90 days or more delinquent on bills over the next year.  The score ranges from 101 to 992.  The second ranges from 1,000 to 1610 and predicts how likely it is that the business will file for bankruptcy over the next 12-month period.  A lower score indicates higher risk. 

They also calculate what they call the business payment index.  This is the Equifax version of Dun & Bradstreet’s PAYDEX.  It even runs on the same scale of 0 to 100.  This is an indicator of payment history over the past year. It is different from the PAYDEX, however, in that you must reach a score of 90 or higher for it to be a good score.  

In addition, Equifax offers business identity reports to confirm a company actually exists. It verifies details such as the company’s tax ID, number of employees, and yearly sales. 

Equifax does not allow business owners to request reports on their own company.  They decide themselves when to start a credit file on a specific company.

Keep your business protected with our professional business credit monitoring.

A Note on CreditSafe

If you want to subscribe with them after you see your credit report sample, they offer 3 packages, Standard, Plus, and Premier.  The problem is, they do not list their prices on their website.  You have to request a quote to determine what your pricing would be.  They allow you to purchase individual products as well. 

CreditSafe is quickly growing in popularity. No doubt that is partly due to the subscription service it offers, which allows easy insight into your own company’s credit report. The free trial allows for test driving, which sweetens the deal even more. 

Their main score, the CreditSafe rating, works on a scale of 1-100.  It predicts the likelihood that payment performance will become 90 plus days beyond terms within the next 12 months or that the business will go bankrupt.  They offer a variety of other scores and reports that provide a ton of information however.

They collect data from over 8,000 sources including: 

  • FTSE Stock
  • Telephone research
  • Local Agents
  • Companies House
  • Gazettes
  • Branches
  • News
  • Trade Payment Data
  • Banks
  • Courts
  • Registry Offices

Of course, this is far less than 8,000, but it gives an idea of the sources they use to gather their information.

CreditSafe Business Credit Reports

  • International Score

This score is derived from the Creditsafe rating. It allows for a comparison of credit risk between companies that are registered in different countries.

  • Credit Limit

The Creditsafe recommended credit limit uses information from the business payment records and those of similar companies to calculate a dollar amount recommendation of the maximum amount of credit a company should receive at any one time.

  • Days Beyond Terms (DBT)

Compares how many days late a business pays its bills in comparison to other companies in the industry.

  • Derogatory Legal

This is a report on the number and value of tax liens and judgements that have been filed in the past 6 years and 9 months.  It also includes bankruptcies filed in the last 9 years and 9 months

  • Payment Trend

A report designed to highlight at a glance substantial changes in how a company is paying its bills. 

  • Business Spend Trend

Lets you know whether the total annual business spending is going up or down when compared to the previous year. 

Subscription packages come in levels, and the prices depend on your business’s individual needs.  You will have to speak to a consultant to get a quote. 

How To Use the Information on Your Credit Report Sample

Honestly, it’s a great idea to get a credit report sample.  But, what do you do with the information that is on it? Here’s what.  You use it to figure out where you need to start with building stronger fundability.  Truly, your business credit score isn’t the only thing that affects fundability.  In fact, there are many other factors that come into play as well. However, if you have a problem with any of these other factors, it will often be detectable on your credit report sample.  Once you see it, you will know what you need to work on, including business credit. 

What Affects Fundability? 

What are some of these other factors you can use your credit report sample to check? Here are just a few.

Other Business Data Agencies 

In addition to the business credit reporting agencies that directly calculate and issue credit reports, there are other business data agencies that affect those reports indirectly.  Two examples of this are LexisNexis and The Small Business Finance Exchange. These two agencies gather data from a variety of sources, including public records.  This means they could even have access to information relating to automobile accidents and liens. While you may not be able to access or change the data the agencies have on your business, you can ensure that any new information they receive is positive.  Enough positive information can help counteract any negative information from the past. If you see something on your credit report you did not expect, it may have come from one or both of these agencies.

Business Information

On the surface, it seems obvious that all of your business information should be the same everywhere it may show up.  However, when you start changing things up like adding a business phone number and address or incorporating, you may find that some things slip through the cracks. If you see accounts missing from your credit report sample, or accounts on it that should not be, you may have a problem with this.

The Application Process

Consider the timing of the application.  Does your credit report make it seem as if your business is currently fundable?  If not, get to work.  

Use Your Credit Report Sample to Build Fundability

Biz Credit Reporting Review Credit SuiteOf course, there are a lot of factors that affect fundability that you may not be able to use your credit report sample to check on.  Still, getting a peek at what is on your business credit report is a fabulous start.

With the information you see, you can start making some decisions about how to create stronger business fundability.  If you see an issue with any of these factors you need to work on it. Seeing a credit report sample is the first step toward detection and correction. Also, I would encourage you, don’t stop with a credit report sample.  You need to see more. Regular monitoring of your business credit is vital.

The post How to Get a Free Credit Report Sample appeared first on Credit Suite.

Fund your Business with Crowdfunding During a Financial Recession

Financial Recession Got You Down? Then Fund Your Business with Crowdfunding

There are thousands of businesses using crowdfunding to raise money to fund their next business venture. For some entrepreneurs, crowdfunding is the ticket to financial independence. Starting a new business without adding debt or taking out equity, can be unheard of for startups. But with a little planning and creative marketing, starting a new business can be more enjoyable than disappointing. Yes, you can fund your business with crowdfunding, even during a financial recession.

Financial Recession Period Funding

The number of American financial institutions and thrifts has been decreasing slowly for a quarter of a century. This is from consolidation in the market along with deregulation in the 1990s, minimizing obstacles to interstate banking. See: https://www.fundera.com/blog/happened-americas-small-businesses-financial-crisis-six-years-start-crisis-look-back-10-charts

Assets concentrated in ever‐larger financial institutions is troublesome for local business proprietors. Big banks are a lot less likely to make small loans. Economic recessions imply banks become more careful with financing. The good news is, business credit does not count on financial institutions.

Beating the Financial Recession: What’s Crowdfunding All About?

Crowdfunding gives today’s business owner a new way to build a successful business. Don’t be fooled. Not everyone with a campaign on a crowdfunding site becomes an automatic millionaire! Success on crowdfunding doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, being an instant success on a crowdfunding site doesn’t usually happen. To succeed at crowdfunding, do your due diligence. And see if you would be successful at crowdfunding.

Beating the Financial Recession: What’s a Good Crowdfunding Platform?

Find which crowdfunding platform is best to use for your business. Kickstarter and Indiegogo are two of the most popular crowdfunding platforms to use. If you’re like most new business owners, you’re looking for investors. Before you start putting your campaign out there, make sure that you have everything ready and perfect. This way, you can get the investors that you want to fund your campaign.

Beating the Financial Recession: How Do You Get Creative With Crowdfunding?

Trying to get the investors you want will take time. You need to brainstorm, create, and perfect the right pitch that gets investors pouring money into your campaign. To help you get your campaign started in the right direction, use this quick guide.

Getting the Best Crowdfunding Platform For Your Needs

Pick a Crowdfunding Platform. Before you get started with your campaign, pick a crowdfunding platform that’s the right fit for you. There are several crowdfunding platforms to choose from. Kickstarter and Indiegogo are two to start looking into.

And you need to be aware of what you are doing when you’re developing your campaign. If you’re raising rewards and not investments, then Kickstarter and Indiegogo should be on your list.

Kickstarter is great to use for creative projects, but it’s all or none. This means that if you don’t raise 100% of your initial funding goal, then you don’t keep the pledged money. Indiegogo is a little different from Kickstarter. If you choose to pay up to 9% of your funds raised, then you can keep the funds pledged to your campaign. The only drawback is that your project will need some minimum funding to work.

GoFundMe is another choice; they let you keep the money even if you don’t meet your goal.

Beating the Financial Recession: Crowdfunding Pitches

Prepare and Get your Pitch Perfect. Remember that the content in your campaign is vying for the attention of your potential investor and client. There are so many other distractions that pull for the attention of your viewers. For this reason, your pitch and its messaging has to grab their attention immediately. Once you get their attention, you can’t stop there. You’ll want to keep your viewers engaged, which means that you need to have a great story to tell about yourself or your project.

Pitch Videos

Your pitch video will need to be good. Use a professional to film it and develop the script. Unable to afford professionals? Then try schools, both pupils and instructors.

Your script doesn’t need to be word for word but you must have points you want to make and not babble. Create a script and stay with it. This is not the right time to wing it.

Show the Evidence

If you have physical evidence of your project, then make sure to show it in your campaign video and on your campaign web page. This means an image of your spa’s sign or a short video recording of your prototype robot.

Address Skepticism

A great deal of people don’t trust crowdfunding. A photo and a tangible thing will go a long way to demonstrating to them that your project isn’t vaporware.

Good Manners Matter

Say please, thank you, and you’re welcome to everyone. Use these magic words in your pitch and in your interactions with your donors. And use them in the cover letters you deliver with your perks (even virtual perks can include a cover e-mail). You don’t need to grovel, but you must be polite.

Financial Recession Credit Suite

Demolish your funding problems with our rock-solid guide about 27 killer ways to get cash for your business. Get money even during the worst of a recession.

Don’t Be Greedy!

If you need $250,000 for your campaign, but you ask for $1,000,000, that does not do anyone any good.

You’ll just seem like you want to bum off others’ generosity. As an alternative, explain your overhead as transparently as possible. Because if you misuse your funds, you may find yourself in an unpleasant meeting with your state’s attorney general. So be truthful!

Beating the Financial Recession: Crowdfunding and Focusing on Your Investors

Focus On What You’re Giving to Your Investors. One of your goals in crowdfunding is to raise funding. But you need to focus on your investors. You want to create rewards or terms that will help you raise the money that you want. When developing the rewards for investors and backers, have your rewards tie back into your story.

One way to come up with a great reward for your campaign is to check out the most successful campaigns which raised the most money.

Donor Strategy

Line up the most significant and most reliable donors you can before you start. Tell your mother to postpone handing over her donation till you launch your campaign.

And ask them (nicely!) to release their money at a very specific time. Which time? The first or final day of the campaign. Separate the expected funding as well as you can. If the split isn’t around half and half, then ask for more to come on the final day of the campaign. Make the most of the novelty factor of the very first day of the campaign, or the urgency factor of the very last.

It’s like a busker with a few of her own dollars in her hat. To motivate people to donate, you want your biggest donors to show other donors that they believe in you and your project. It helps if they tell other donors that they’d best get in on investing in your company before the opportunity ends.

Beating the Financial Recession: Crowdfunding Supporter Engagement

Get Supporter Engagement. Don’t make the common mistake of not engaging the people in your network of friends, family, and supporters. When creating a campaign, be ready to start funding once you launch everything. It’s especially important if you are using equity crowdfunding. Supporter engagement is vital. Because these people are your stakeholders, advisors, board members, partners, and existing investors.

Courtesy Counts

Be gracious if your campaign fails. Even with GoFundMe (where you can keep the money even if you fall short), you still may not get enough to make a significant dent in your funding needs. If you wanted $100,000 and you only got $500, your best option may be to give back the cash.

If you almost got there with $95,000, then thank everybody who donated. See what you can do, although there’s a deficiency. And tell them what you are doing! Perhaps you’ll buy your building next year, or hire four people as opposed to five.

Once more, give your donors a stake in and an inside look at your startup. This will help them to feel invested. And they may decide to make up the shortfall themselves. Just because your crowdfunding campaign ends doesn’t mean a donor can’t send a check or buy more goods or services. If that comes about, then politeness is crucial.

Financial Recession Credit Suite

Demolish your funding problems with our rock-solid guide about 27 killer ways to get cash for your business. Get money even during the worst of a recession.

Beating the Financial Recession: Finding Influencers

Get to know Notable Investors. Get the attention of people who have never heard of your project before. One of your main goals should be to get people, organizations, and businesses that are familiar with you involved with your campaign. And ask them to spread the word. This sort of networking can only help you.

Social Media

Share your campaign on social networks and ask your friends and family to do so, too. Tweet the link. Add it as a Facebook status. Turn it into a Tumblr blog post or a snap on Snapchat or publish a blog post about it. Ask your network to distribute the link. The best technique to get your network to help you out is by assisting them in return. If your nephew’s band is on Facebook, share their page, or tweet about it.

Be a cooperative member of your own personal community. Then your online community will be more likely to help you out when you ask. And rerun these social media posts. Consider time zones and our all-too busy lives. People might not see your message the first time around. Mix it up and send it at irregular hours. Use scheduling software such as HootSuite for this. This includes what is the middle of the night where you live.

Beating the Financial Recession: Crowdfunding Strategy

Plan your Marketing and Outreach Strategy. You will need to put hours into creatively marketing your campaign before it launches. Successful campaign owners spend hours developing a plan that will market their campaign. And they have a defined goal that raises funding efforts both online and offline.

COVID-19 funding Credit Suite

Demolish your funding problems with our rock-solid guide about 27 killer ways to get cash for your business. Get money even during the worst of a recession.

Stretch Goals

Your stretch goals should be a mix of easy to get and pie in the sky. If you are crowdfunding for $100,000, a pretty easy to meet stretch goal is $125,000.

Pie in the sky will be more like $300,000. Make it clear what you will do with any added cash if you are fortunate enough to get it. Will you buy the property your startup is in? Hire five more people? Replace your worn out equipment? Open a brand-new market on some other continent? Let your donors know what you are striving for, so they can dream with you.

Beating the Financial Recession: Takeaways

Starting a new business venture doesn’t have to be restrictive or stressful. This is especially when you know how to use crowdfunding and its various platforms. Crowdfunding can be another way to fund your business or a new project without having to pay for upfront marketing costs. And you get to keep your equity!

As a business owner, you should always look for ways to grow your business. And by using crowdfunding you can provide your business with new avenues to get funding.

The post Fund your Business with Crowdfunding During a Financial Recession appeared first on Credit Suite.

Place A Little You In Your Marketing

Place A Little You In Your Marketing

Among the terrific benefits that small companies have is that by their actual nature they are a lot more individual.

What customers experience in dealing with a small company has a tendency to be extra genuine as well as authentic? Today’s idea is rather easy – Leverage that and also placed a bit extra you in your advertising and marketing.

Whole lots of little companies are discovering out that one of the ideal points they can do for their advertising and marketing and also sales is to begin obtaining a bit extra “individual” with their target market. I simply got involved in one of John Jantsh’s (Duct Tape Marketing) Ultimate Marketing System teleclasses this week. He thinks every little organization ought to include their tale (an advertising and marketing tale) as component of their advertising package of products.

1. Place an image on your internet site, ezine, blog site, networking follow-up thanks notes, and so on. It allows individuals see the human lagging your small company.

Book a little room in your e-newsletter or ezine for an individual area to inform visitors a little bit regarding what’s going on with you as well as your life. I simply satisfied with an economic consultant this week that has actually placed with each other a little internet website regarding his pets.

Scrap the bio or return to on the “About United States” web page of your advertising and marketing set and also internet website. Offer us a tale to allow us understand that you are, why you do what you do, exactly how you obtained right into it, what passion or also attracts you concerning your job, some of the points that you’re most happy of, and so on.

These are simply a couple of concepts. Place a bit extra you in your advertising and also maximize among the excellent benefits small companies have.

Today’s idea is quite straightforward – Leverage that reality as well as placed a bit much more you in your advertising.

Whole lots of little services are discovering out that one of the ideal points they can do for their advertising as well as sales is to begin obtaining a bit a lot more “individual” with their target market. Individuals enjoy a fantastic tale as well as associate to them a lot less complicated than a number of advertising and marketing talk that’s plainly simply attempting to obtain them to get. I simply got involved in one of John Jantsh’s (Duct Tape Marketing) Ultimate Marketing System teleclasses this week. He thinks every little company ought to include their tale (an advertising and marketing tale) as component of their advertising set of products.

Marketing Automation Consulting

Why aren’t more companies using marketing automation?

A recent survey from Liana Technologies found that 60 percent of respondents said they didn’t know how to use marketing automation. They listed a lack of know-how as the main reason they weren’t adopting marketing automation campaigns.

Half of those surveyed also listed a lack of strategy or personnel as yet another reason they weren’t moving forward with marketing automation. 

As you can see from the research, these companies need marketing automation consulting. 

10 Ways a Marketing Automation Consultant Can Help Grow Your Business

Marketing automation is often viewed as a nice-to-have option, something that could be helpful but really isn’t all that necessary for companies looking to grow. Marketing automation isn’t an extra; it’s a component that’s an essential part of your marketing. 

This isn’t always as clear until you breakdown the benefits that come with marketing automation. 

Here are ten ways a marketing automation consultant can help you grow your business. 

  1. More targeted marketing: Many companies force their customers into the same marketing funnel. They’re not focused on optimizing their funnel based on the buyer’s journey, so most of their prospects fall out of their marketing funnel. A marketing automation consultant helps you segment and target your customers properly. A good consultant will help you identify customers who are ready to buy, leads that need to be nurtured, and leads you can disqualify. 
  2. Improve customer experiences: According to Salesforce, 76 percent of consumers expect you to understand their needs and expectations. Another 84 percent said, “being treated like a person, not a number” is essential to earning their business. Marketing automation helps you achieve this at scale, so you’re able to provide the one-on-one attention and personalization customers expect.   
  3. Increased traffic: Big companies have embraced analytics, but most don’t know how to use their data. Most don’t have a data-driven culture, so it’s difficult for many organizations to have confidence in their marketing decisions. This isn’t just big companies, though; it’s most companies in general. This means it’s harder for companies to identify the traffic sources working well versus those that aren’t. With marketing automation tools like lead scoring and lead nurturing, you can identify your best performing traffic sources.
  4. Higher quality leads: When customers go through the same funnels, without segmentation, lead quality suffers. Your marketing automation consultant should help you outline the buyer’s journey and segment customers based on their place in the funnel. Doing this increases lead quality as customers are pre-qualified before and after they convert. This keeps the quality of the leads sent to sales high. 
  5. More leads: Once you’ve identified the list of marketing automation tools and workflows you need to generate high-quality leads, you can use those same automation tools to scale your lead generation campaigns. Your marketing automation consultant will help you increase lead production, using the lessons learned from your smaller campaigns. You’ll know which traffic sources perform best, how to improve lead quality, 
  6. Increased conversion rates: One of the hidden benefits of marketing automation is that the benefits are cumulative. Your marketing automation consultant will show you how to combine the strategy, tactics, workflows, and tools you’ve put together into a single system. Each component, when optimized, should produce increased conversion rates consistently in your campaigns over time.   
  7. Increased ROI: As your conversion rates increase, your ROI will continue to grow. A great marketing automation consultant will show you how to maintain your ROI as you continue to scale. You should see more revenue with less spend consistently over time.   
  8. Reduced expenses: As metrics like your return on ad spend (ROAS) and your conversion rate improves, you should see a decrease in costs (e.g., cost per lead, cost per action, customer acquisition costs). Your marketing automation consultant should monitor your returns and expenses, ensuring that both are moving in the right direction. 
  9. Data sharing between marketing channels: Your marketing automation stack should provide your team with the right data analysis tools. If you use analysis tools like Cyfe or Power BI, you’ll want to make sure that your team has access to data across marketing channels; your consultant should help you set this up, so your team has need-to-know access to data. Doing this will reduce operational silos, keeping everyone in your team on the same page; no more fights between sales and marketing for control. 
  10. Shorter sales cycles: Let’s say you’ve received two sets of leads. Set A has customers who are ready to buy now. They’ve done their homework, and they’ve decided your company is the best fit. Set B has interested customers; they won’t be ready to decide for another three to six months. Set A has a shorter sales cycle — your consultant helps you find and segment these customers as they come into your funnel.  

These benefits aren’t random one-offs; they’re outcomes your business needs to grow. The problem with growth is scaling. As you grow, it gets harder to manage all of this manually. 

How to Get Started With a Marketing Automation Consultant

Your marketing automation consultant should be a specialist with deep expertise in automation. They should also have experience across a broad range of marketing disciplines and channels, including:

  • Advertising (display, content,
  • Analytics
  • Branding
  • Content
  • Direct response
  • Email
  • Market research
  • Mobile 
  • Sales
  • Search (organic and paid)
  • Websites (e.g., conversion rate optimization, usability, etc.)

If you’re ready to get started with a marketing automation consultant, there are a few things you’ll need to prepare ahead of time. Upfront preparation makes it easier to get started; your consultant doesn’t have to waste a lot of time (and your money) getting you up to speed.

Both of you will be able to jump in right away. 

You’ll want to make sure that you have a list of:

  • Goals, KPIs, and objectives: For example, this could include a list of tools you’d like to integrate in your technology stack, as well as how you’d like these tools to perform. This could also provide your consultant with information on the specific outcomes you’d like to see due to automation (e.g., a 7 percent increase in productivity, shorter sales cycles, less double entry, improved utilization rates, etc.).
  • The tools and resources you’re using: You’ll want to make a list of the tools and resources you’re already using. Collect additional information on the number of users for each software, tool, or subscription. Make note of any API keys and special instructions. Also include a list of the software, tools, and resources you’d like to use.
  • Decision-makers and influencers: If you’re part of a team, you may find that some people aren’t all that excited to share their data. Others are interested in working with your consultant to automate essential marketing tasks. Sharing a list of decision-makers and influencers with your consultant makes their job easier. Right from the beginning, they know where everyone stands and who to talk to if they need help getting everyone on the same page.
  • Obstacles and challenges: You’ll want to outline the list of barriers and challenges that may prevent you from achieving the goals and objectives you’ve listed above. Maybe some of the services you use don’t offer an API or integrate with third-party services like Zapier. Maybe some of the tools in your list are outdated, or they’re unsupported legacy options (i.e., legacy software running on Windows XP).
  • Policies and procedures: If your company has specific policies, procedures, or guidelines for software purchases, you’ll want to share that with your consultant as well. You want to let your consultant know what’s allowed, required, forbidden, and unacceptable. You want to set your consultant up for success by giving them a clear set of guidelines to follow; this helps your company grow. 
  • Strengths and weaknesses: This step is uncomfortable but it’s also important; if your team, division, or company has problems in a specific area, spell that out for your consultant as clearly as possible. Does it take your company a long time to make important decisions? Is your organization good at finding great employees and contractors? Give your consultant a brief overview of your strengths and weaknesses. Getting people on board is easier when you know what you’re working with. 

Sharing this information upfront makes automation smooth and efficient.

If you’ve already answered these questions for your consultant, they’re able to focus their attention on helping you automate your marketing campaigns, projects, and tasks. 

Measuring the ROI of Marketing Automation Consulting Services

In general, consultants aren’t big on measuring ROI, but they should be. It’s reasonable to expect the same from your marketing automation consultant. If you’ve done the upfront work I’ve mentioned already, you should have everything you need to measure the ROI ahead of time. 

Remember the list of goals, KPIs, and objectives you wrote down earlier?

Your consultant should be able to help you refine your goals and objectives. If you haven’t already, you want to add some specificity to these goals. You’ll want to add specific numbers, facts. or figures to these goals. Use these figures as a general guide — you want to discuss these with your consultant making sure they’re realistic and achievable.

Here are a few examples you can use:

  • Increase productivity becomes — Increase our marketing team’s productivity by 16 percent
  • Improve lead quality becomes — Use lead scoring to achieve a 6 percent lift in marketing qualified lead volume
  • Identify top-performing marketing channels becomes — Identify top performing marketing channels by automating URL tagging for all current and future marketing campaigns
  • decrease customer acquisition costs becomes — Reduce customer acquisition costs on Google ads by a minimum of 11 percent

Measuring your ROI is pretty straightforward if you have a clear idea of your campaign goals and objectives. The easier it is for you to list a starting point, the easier it will be for your consultant to help you reach your goals and objectives.

4 Point Checklist For Finding the Right Marketing Automation Consultant

Choosing the right marketing automation consultant is simple if you’ve prepared ahead of time. From there, you can screen consultants the same way you would for any other consultant or professional. First, you outline your process, listing your goals and objectives, your current technology stack, decision-makers, influencers, etc. Second, you filter your providers through your process, ensuring each candidate meets the criteria you’ve set.

Here’s a shortlist of the criteria you can use to evaluate your consultants.

  1. They understand digital marketing. The best marketing automation consultants are marketers themselves. The ideal candidate is a marketing veteran who’s managed marketing campaigns from beginning to end throughout their career. You’re looking for someone who got their start as a marketer.
  2. They understand your business. Your marketing automation consultant should have an in-depth knowledge of your business — how it works, what you need, mistakes to avoid, etc. If you’re managing a retail or ecommerce company, your consultant should have experience managing marketing campaigns for retail or e-commerce companies. You’re looking for someone who has a native understanding of your business.
  3. They’re data-driven. Marketing automation requires a mix of art and science. You’ll need someone who loves to read through data but is skilled enough to explain it to the people on your team who aren’t data-driven. The ideal consultant can tell stories with data and helping your team make important decisions. 
  4. They’re proactive and knowledgeable. When it comes to automation, you shouldn’t be as knowledgeable as your consultant. They should be able to make recommendations and connections you weren’t even thinking of. They should be able to help you automate your campaigns in new ways; to increase your productivity by customizing your marketing stack.  

This checklist is pretty simple. 

A great marketing automation consultant should be able to handle everything we’ve covered so far comfortably. They should be able to break things down for you, showing you how to improve your plan, refine your goals and objectives, and add to your technology stack. 

They should be asking questions. 

If they’re good at what they do, they’ll have some questions and requirements of their own. 

Conclusion

While many organizations are switching to marketing automation, most don’t have a clear plan they can follow. Companies list a lack of know-how, strategy, or personnel as the reasons why they weren’t completely on board with marketing automation. 

That’s changing fast, though. 

More companies are investing in marketing automation. They’re taking the time to implement a strategy for their business. Marketing automation isn’t an extra; it’s a component that’s an essential part of your marketing, especially as your company grows. 

With the right consultant and a clear strategy, you’ll have the people, process, and technology you need to grow your business quickly. 

The post Marketing Automation Consulting appeared first on Neil Patel.

New comment by TJLeahy in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2020)"

Remote Go Developer

We are looking for a backend engineer to help craft the future of Teamwork Desk. We are a self-funded and privately owned Irish company with employees all over the world.

Check out our role here:

https://careers.teamwork.com/jobs/backenddesk

The post New comment by TJLeahy in “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2020)” appeared first on ROI Credit Builders.

New comment by Dsuniga14 in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2020)"

Qualia | Fullstack ENGINEERING MANAGER | San Francisco, CA | Full-time, Salary + Options

Qualia (qualia.com) is a startup making web applications for real estate professionals. We have raised over 95M in total funding, have not stopped hiring throughout COVID and are actively looking to add 50 folks to the team before the end of the year.

We are making it easier to buy and sell homes by taking the process online.

Solving the real estate coordination problem makes for some really fun engineering and design challenges, and opportunities to make the process better for everyone involved.

About US:
– Well funded with years of runway
– Own 20% of a 40 Billion dollar industry
– Actively hiring during a world recession
– Personal and Career Growth opportunities
– 5X revenue Growth last 18 months
– All 3 Founders are Forbes 30 Under 30 Award recipients
– Recently named as one of the best startup employers in 2020.
-Named one of the “50 Future Unicorns” by CB Insights and Fast Company.

Contact David at David.Sunigaqualia.com!

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