• Not aligning KPIs to business strategies
• Measuring irrelevant factors
• Blindly follows others
• Do not involve executives in KPI selection
• Not updating existing KPIs

It is easy to get buried in day-to-day activities and miss out on the big picture, and many new entrepreneurs may not realize some key data points and their significance. However, knowing which to track can be perplexing with many potential KPIs.

List of important KPIs all entrepreneurs might not be taking into consideration.

• Cash flow management

For every business, cash is of great importance. However, many companies with more than million-dollar sales annually end up bankrupt. This is because they fail to keep their financial position in check. A simple metric to track is accounts receivable days sales outstanding or DSO.

• Customer retention

Entrepreneurs focus on securing new consumers but forget that regular and loyal customers are vital factors. They are powerful vocal brand advocates who buy the products repeatedly and provide valuable word-of-mouth marketing.

• Gross profit and net income

Every business owner knows that gross profit calculation is a fundamental factor but somehow fails to do it properly. 

Gross profit = (revenue – cost of goods sold) / revenue * 100

Net income is the overall profit or the actual money made by the business after deducting all the costs and expenses. It is more inclusive than gross profit and covers all the components of an income statement.

• Employee utilization

Employee utilization is the number of employees’ hours spent doing billable work. It is often an overlooked factor to which entrepreneurs should frequently pay attention. Focusing on the ratio of revenue to employee indicates the health of the business, and if a company grows in this factor, it is considered sound and efficient.

• Accounts receivable and payable

Accounts receivable is a balance of payments that customers have not yet paid for, or it is the money that third parties owe you. It is necessary to regularly track accounts receivable because most businesses sell products on credit. Moreover, regular check-ins of accounts receivable ascertain the company’s overall financial health. 

Entrepreneurs can initiate corrections in the account receivable management by a simple metric, average account receivable for a period / total sales for the same period

Account payable is the money to be paid by businesses to the vendors, which is a liability on the company’s balance sheet. This KPI gives clarity about the financial condition of an enterprise and its relation to suppliers as it has a direct bearing on working capital.

KPI measurement tools to help entrepreneurs

There are a number of tools and software that can make KPI tracking easier. However, some of it might be a better fit than others, depending on your business model.

• Tableau 
• SimpleKPI
• Salesforce
• Geckoboard
• Scoro
• Datapine
• Smartsheet
• Bilbeo

Key performing indicators (KPIs) are indispensable factors to determine the success and failure of a business. In addition, they monitor the company’s health, help to make adjustments, solve problems, and analyze patterns over time. KPI measurement tools make all of the work easy for entrepreneurs.

The post List of important KPIs all Entrepreneurs might not be taking into consideration appeared first on AquGen Technologies.

Here is a list of small business marketing ideas and tips to give you a competitive edge.

• Invest in SEO

With trade shows and seminars getting canceled or postponed, it is best to reallocate your budget for in-person events to other channels like SEO. 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people are spending more time online. Total internet traffic has already increased by over a quarter which seems obvious on the surface but consider people are spending more time researching things they may want to buy once the pandemic calms down.

By leveraging SEO, you can increase your chances of getting your business in front of your target audience right when they are searching for your products and while companies are slashing marketing budgets, it is the perfect time to invest and gain valuable ground in the digital real estate world.

• Invest in Paid Ads

Paid ads have become cheaper as a lot of small businesses have stopped their PPC campaigns. As a result, there is not much competition and the price of ads continues to drop which does not make much sense.  More people online, and the price of ads dropping sounds like the best buying opportunity for small businesses.

• Heighten Your Email Marketing

Email marketing drives the highest ROI among other digital marketing channels. So reach out to your customers to know if they are okay, share information on how you are adding value to their life by distributing valuable content. 

People are more likely to remember your brand if you support them at crucial times. You need to be careful of your choice of content and messaging. 

• Keep content on target 

When you know your audience, it’s much easier to create targeted, relevant and valuable content. Make it your goal to reach your audience on a more personal level.

Instead of pushing your product, focus on providing insight, information, and maybe even entertainment. Believe it or not, this approach is a much more effective means of guiding prospects along the buyer’s journey.

• Optimize Your Emails

According to State of Marketing Report, 86% of customers prefer email when communicating for business purposes. Email Marketing for small business owners is an important but tricky business. Great content does not guarantee that recipients will open your email. There are, however, ways to improve audience engagement, open rates, and conversions.

1. 1. 1. Sender address – Make sure your emails are coming from a recognizable sender name, preferably a business address.
      2. Subject line – Does it tell the reader what the next step is? Is what’s next worth clicking? If not, you’d better head back to the drawing board.
      3. Design – Is your content optimized for mobile viewing? Does it deliver on the promise of your subject line? Is it visually appealing and easy to read?
      4. Call to action – What is your call-to-action (CTA)? Do the recipients know what you want them to do? Is it easy for them to do it?

• Boost Your Social Media Content

Social media algorithms are constantly evolving with harder to gain traction organically. This is where paid advertisements and boosted posts can help level the playing field.

Paid ads generated over $18 billion revenue in 2019. Social ads ranked slightly lower, with 74 percent of B2C marketers using them and 59 percent reporting them effective.

If you need a quick guide to the world of social advertising, this is where you can start:

• Facebook Ads
• LinkedIn Ads
• Twitter Ads
• Instagram Ads

The post Effective Marketing Tips for Small Business Owners appeared first on AquGen Technologies.

Based on Verticals 

Your agency’s positioning will be closely tied to the verticals you serve.

If you’re only focusing on a specific size of business (SMEs or enterprise) or a particular industry (e.g. lawyers, dentists, car dealerships), this variable is already accounted for.

But if a vertical specificity emerges naturally from your client portfolio, you may want to reassess your services. Or perhaps you want to generate new business in line with industry trends, so you only focus on the exploding companies and their offer requests:

• You can assess that, once more, through YoY search trends and evaluate their growth rate
• You can research investment trends, VC funds, and their portfolios, then find useful insights about potential leads

Ensure Your Goals Are Shared 

If they feel like true partners, where opportunities are equally beneficial and there’s respect and admiration on both sides, that’s when it starts to feel like a good fit. It doesn’t matter if it’s a sexy brand or a big name account; if those shared goals are not there, it can be an uphill climb and almost not worth starting the relationship in the first place. 

Based on Your Agency’s Culture

It is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when talking about qualifying a client, but certainly one of the crucial aspects of keeping the relationship happy and long-term is this: is it a cultural fit between your agency and that lead?

The agency evaluates the communication and growth potential of that relationship:

• Can you work together for many years to come?
• Can you build a relationship with them?
• Do they trust you to experiment and take calculated risks for their projects?

Pick and Pitch 

Most agencies focus on pitching a potential client instead of picking potential clients. The idea of picking and pitching is determining the types of clients you are after, (i.e. budget, industry, the scope of work, etc.) then targeting those that fall within your own parameters. Saying no to potential clients that don’t fall within those parameters will help you stay focused on the ones that are the best fit.

Based on Your Agency’s Growth Objectives

One final, major point we’re tackling here is the convergence of your agency’s growth strategy, the lead’s business model, ability to implement the right SEO campaign, and market position.

Is there potential for growing the initial project’s scope and getting more business from that lead in the future? Is there potential to further your agency’s expertise and education through this lead?

You should think about the many avenues you can grow together, whether through innovation or increasing a specific market share. 

Another tip for choosing the best SEO agency is aiming for established brands, which implies scaling the agency’s business development or sales team. Go Up is currently in this process, targeting big names to add to their portfolio while also reaffirming their positioning as a leading SEO company.

The post Tips for Selecting the Right Clients For Your Agency appeared first on AquGen Technologies.

We came up with the SEO tips for Startup that will help you understand the game better as well as the initials that will make your startup to make stand faster.

Startup SEO Hacks for 2021

The basic understanding of Search Engine Optimization is to understand the need for the Search Engine. Studies suggest that over 90% of people won’t click on the fourth link of the search engine. Thus, you need to target the first three places of the search engine.

SEO for startups are built on these basic needs:

• Access: obviously Google needs access to get into your site and rank it. The better the accessibility of the website the easier will be the ranking criteria.

• User Experience (UX): why would Google give you preference if your page is not friendly with the users. People want to get information and data from your site and all you are giving them is lag is not acceptable for Google.

• Content: maybe you have heard that Content is king, but you need to understand that the Content has to be unique and worthy enough to be the king. If you can ace it then you can ace the results as well.

• Engagement: Google bases the result page on the engagement of people into your site. It is largely governed by UX and Content, thus you need to optimize those first.

• Optimization: last but not least is the usage of optimization. When everything is up and running you need to make them work better every day so that the complete environment is worthy for Google to access.

Now you know what to take care of the most.

Basic Strategy Creation for the SEO

To yield the benefits of SEO for startups you need to take some basic steps the SEO:

1. Define your strategy: think of what your site is giving to the people around. Who is the audience and then plan a strategy.
2. Make the site mobile friendly: people browse more on mobiles than on PCs, thus make your site mobile friendly first then take further steps into it.
3. Don’t ignore AI and Automation: AI and automation form the backbone of the complete site. You cannot be present everywhere 24×7, thus, choose and make work of automation to the fullest.
4. Thorough Keyword Research: Content needs to be in perfect alignment and for that, you need to take up rightful KW and research before you take them down.
5. Links: it will be all empty if you are not connected to the web of sites that refer you back. It not only gives you traffic but also lends credibility to your site for Google to notice.
6. Announce your Entry: tell the world about your presence on the internet. Marketing as well as your online presence go hand in hand. Tell more and more about your presence so that they can learn about it and if they like it, they can convey as well.

Conclusion

We gave you the basic idea of how the SEO for startups take place in the online world. SEO hacks for 2021 are indeed the base on how your strategy for the SEO will be based on. SEO is one of the major segments on which you as a startup need to work because it governs the direction of the complete startup.

The post Some Must-Do SEO for Startups appeared first on AquGen Technologies.

The post How Small Business Can Survive The COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on AquGen Technologies.