It’s finally 2016! Hopefully, 2015 has been a good year for your business. But if you’re reading this article, then there’s probably something lacking.
Looking back in your plans, do you think you could’ve accomplished more if only you did things a little differently in the past 12 months? It’s okay – humans are not really hardwired to always make the right decisions. In fact, it is in our unfortunate biology to stray away from the more productive and responsible choices and opt more on the things that can grant us little pleasures.
Collectively, these little bad decisions could be limiting your potential for attaining success. And it has to stop.
If you want to pursue growth, you should be willing to implement a couple of changes that will improve your performance in business. Fortunately, it’s not about working harder. Rather, you should aim to start working smarter. In this article, you will learn all about the best tools that can help you achieve your business objectives.
Using GetResponse to Build an Email List
Throughout 2015, there was an undeniable rise in the demand for automation software, and it has penetrated several areas of online marketing. This includes email marketing; one of the oldest and most important pillars for online marketing.
A good tool to use would be GetResponse, which is one of the most popular email marketing software in the market. It is complete with everything you need from a drag-and-drop email builder to automation features.
A great start for your 2016 would be to review and update your email lists. First of all, you could be guilty of having only one email list for a particular website. This is simply bad for lead nurturing and could limit the engagement your audience can receive. To avoid this, you should always have segregation for your target audience by identifying their content type preferences and the information they want from you. This is crucial for developing a content strategy. Additionally, doing so is a great step towards being more personal with your audience.
Finally, GetResponse offers a List Builder feature where you can upload all your leads from different sources into your email list in just a couple of clicks. This is crucial if you want to make the most out of the contact details and convert them into subscribers.
Improve Project Management Efforts with WorkflowMAX
Managing a business is never an easy task. It involves hours of intensive work from invoicing, time-tracking, and countless other administrative tasks. At least, this is how it is if you’ve been managing your business in the old-fashioned way (stacks of paperwork, spreadsheets, etc.). Today, the industry of cloud-based business software has never been healthier. And one of the best applications is to use WorkflowMAX for project management.
WorkflowMAX is packed with functionality that can help businesses in various industries from creative design to IT. It can help you easily generate professional-looking quotes, delegate and track jobs, access data in real-time, and achieve paperless invoicing. It also comes with a powerful time tracking & timesheet tool so you know exactly how much work your employees actually do in a workday.
Lastly, remember that WorkFlowMAX is not exclusively intended for SMEs. Even freelancers and self-employed professionals can definitely benefit from its suite of productivity-boosting tools. Fortunately, the service comes with a free trial. This makes it practically risk-free as you learn more about the software. All in all, it is definitely worth checking out.
Optimize your Social Media Lead Generation with Socedo
In the past few years, social media has been one of the main lead generation channels of online marketers. With the growing number of social media users in the world, it is safe to assume that the future of digital marketing will have a lot more focus on social platforms for lead generation.
However, this also means higher costs of advertising for online brands. This includes the cost of researching and identifying your target audience(s). Of course, this also includes the money you spend as you continue to optimize your social marketing campaign, which is very difficult — if not impossible — to get right the first time. To make the most out of your money, you should consider using Socedo – an automation tool for social media lead generation.
Socedo has everything you need to optimize your social media channel for better lead generation. One of its key features is the ability to create and customize an entire engagement process that’s automatically delivered to social prospects once you approve them. Furthermore, you can easily fill the top of your sales funnel by specifying your own criteria for selection. When done, Socedo does the rest by bringing you these social prospects. Lastly, it comes with an in-built social lead performance report so you can keep on sharpening your audience targeting.
Make the Most Out of your Time at Work with TOGGL and NOISLI
No matter how long you’ve been in business, there are always ways to improve the productivity at the office. And whether your business is online or not, your team of people will always be the blood that keeps the company going. This 2016, you should consider implementing the trending tools for time management and productivity.
By now, you should already be aware that timesheets are not really the best way to measure your output in a day. If anything, they hinder your ability to effectively set achievable deadlines for important tasks. Toggl, on the other hand, is a simple and powerful time tracker that can help you stay ahead of your work. Whether it’s for writing content, optimizing an email list, executing an ad campaign, or recording a podcast, Toggl can help you focus on one objective at a time and apprehend clear and detailed reports on where every second went.
To make the most out of your time tracking, you can incorporate Noisli in your working hours. It is a free and simple background noise generator, which has been proven to increase focus and stimulate creativity.
Eliminate Distractions using Stayfocusd
What you see before you (page below) is one of the most elegant productivity tools in the digital age, especially with the rise of social media and other websites that induce procrastination. It is a known fact that not a single professional today is immune to distraction.
However, supervising your team all the time is not really an efficient way to solve this. Instead, you can rely on Stayfocusd, which is a simple tool that blocks websites when accessed through your local network. You can choose to block a specific list of websites, allow access to only a few sites, or block the entire internet altogether using this simple tool. Whenever you try to access a restricted website, the tool will casually remind you to stay focused on your work.
An effective way to use Stayfocusd is to specify how long it will work in restricting internet access. This makes it an incredibly useful tool when used in combination with Toggl. Fortunately, Stayfocusd is completely free to use, but you are free to make donations in case you want to show your appreciation for this brilliant piece of software.
Images: Author’s Own
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