holiday sales in ecommerce store

Six Virtual Assistant services you must opt for a merrier Christmas

It’s time to make merry, decorate trees with mistletoes and stars, because Christmas is just around the corner. We all know that it is a busy season for Santa Clause and so it is for small business owners like you. It’s a shorter working month for you, above that you have to launch seasonal campaigns, host parties, dinners and manage all sorts of festivities. Santa manages his load of work with the assistance of his elves but what about you? Don’t worry, just like elves are there for Santa, there are Virtual assistants for you. Doing everything on your own in this festive season could be overwhelming. Now is a good time to outsource some of those piled up tasks to Virtual Assistants. It will decrease your stress; ensure quality deliverance along with timely accomplishment. In order to reap the best benefits of outsourcing you must outsource the right things. Here, we list out six such tasks you must outsource this holiday season to make the most of Virtual Assistance: Sending your clients Seasonal Greetings: Let your business clients know how much you value them -wish them a merry Christmas and a happy new year. You can easily outsource such seasonal greetings campaign to a virtual assistant. If outsourced to an expert e-mail marketer, it will run smoothly and efficiently without adding to your stress. Calendar maintenance and reminder setting: As already stated, Christmas season is loaded with festivities as well as business errands and it is likely to miss out on something important. Maintaining a calendar and setting reminders to accomplish everything on time will help you sail smoothly through the season. Outsourcing calendar maintenance will save time and make your schedule easier to manage. Settle all accounts: This season awaits a fresh New Year and it is good to start the New Year with a fresh financial account. Which means it is an ideal time to settle your payable and receivable accounts. It requires a lot of time and patience, so outsourcing this to your virtual book-keeping team will save you time and money. Gifting your clients: Just like sending seasonal e-mails to delight your clients, you may send them gifts as well. Sending gifts is again a time consuming procedure. All the tasks, right from segmenting your list of clients for personalizing the gifts till purchasing the gifts and sending them to their respective addresses can easily be offloaded to a Virtual Assistant. Social media marketing: An interesting new social media campaign is a magnet of client attraction for this season. Creating Christmas themed videos for Facebook and YouTube, initiating a contest in twitter or Facebook, making an Instagram film and other similar initiatives will help further your brand goals. Outsourcing seasonal social media marketing to expert virtual assistants will improve the engagement your audience. Making travel itinerary: After working for a long year you need a break away from the routine and to spend quality time with your loved ones. But you can enjoy the vacation only after going through a host of boring errands like booking flight tickets, finding the right hotel, hunting a suitable travel agent and the like. These errands can also be very efficiently accomplished by virtual assistants. Outsourcing the above mentioned errands will free up your time to focus on your core business and wrap up the important things on time before you leave for your much awaited vacation. You will be able to strike a balance between your work and festivities, which in turn will help you enjoy longer and happier hours with your family.

Six Virtual Assistant services you must opt for a merrier Christmas Read More »

It’s time to make merry, decorate trees with mistletoes and stars, because Christmas is just around the corner. We all know that it is a busy season for Santa Clause and so it is for small business owners like you. It’s a shorter working month for you, above that you have to launch seasonal campaigns, host parties, dinners and manage all sorts of festivities. Santa manages his load of work with the assistance of his elves but what about you? Don’t worry, just like elves are there for Santa, there are Virtual assistants for you. Doing everything on your own in this festive season could be overwhelming. Now is a good time to outsource some of those piled up tasks to Virtual Assistants. It will decrease your stress; ensure quality deliverance along with timely accomplishment. In order to reap the best benefits of outsourcing you must outsource the right things. Here, we list out six such tasks you must outsource this holiday season to make the most of Virtual Assistance: Sending your clients Seasonal Greetings: Let your business clients know how much you value them -wish them a merry Christmas and a happy new year. You can easily outsource such seasonal greetings campaign to a virtual assistant. If outsourced to an expert e-mail marketer, it will run smoothly and efficiently without adding to your stress. Calendar maintenance and reminder setting: As already stated, Christmas season is loaded with festivities as well as business errands and it is likely to miss out on something important. Maintaining a calendar and setting reminders to accomplish everything on time will help you sail smoothly through the season. Outsourcing calendar maintenance will save time and make your schedule easier to manage. Settle all accounts: This season awaits a fresh New Year and it is good to start the New Year with a fresh financial account. Which means it is an ideal time to settle your payable and receivable accounts. It requires a lot of time and patience, so outsourcing this to your virtual book-keeping team will save you time and money. Gifting your clients: Just like sending seasonal e-mails to delight your clients, you may send them gifts as well. Sending gifts is again a time consuming procedure. All the tasks, right from segmenting your list of clients for personalizing the gifts till purchasing the gifts and sending them to their respective addresses can easily be offloaded to a Virtual Assistant. Social media marketing: An interesting new social media campaign is a magnet of client attraction for this season. Creating Christmas themed videos for Facebook and YouTube, initiating a contest in twitter or Facebook, making an Instagram film and other similar initiatives will help further your brand goals. Outsourcing seasonal social media marketing to expert virtual assistants will improve the engagement your audience. Making travel itinerary: After working for a long year you need a break away from the routine and to spend quality time with your loved ones. But you can enjoy the vacation only after going through a host of boring errands like booking flight tickets, finding the right hotel, hunting a suitable travel agent and the like. These errands can also be very efficiently accomplished by virtual assistants. Outsourcing the above mentioned errands will free up your time to focus on your core business and wrap up the important things on time before you leave for your much awaited vacation. You will be able to strike a balance between your work and festivities, which in turn will help you enjoy longer and happier hours with your family.

Superhero Syndrome At Large Among Small Business Owners

Being a superhero for your children, spouse, parents or partner is great, but the same cannot be said about your business. Sure, you may run a successful single-office agency and could be the jack of all trades for your business. But do you realize it could be detrimental if you are the master of none? Most entrepreneurs take great pride in completing every task and jump at every small opportunity to be the only ones at the helms of their businesses. Chris Ducker, the author of ‘Virtual Freedom’ has coined a term for this situation and calls it the ‘Superhero Syndrome‘, a prevalent condition wherein entrepreneurs and small business owners believe that they can handle everything on their own without having to delegate or subcontract work. Though there is nothing wrong with handling everything yourself, it is only prudent to outsource dreary business processes to specialized Virtual Assistants at the right time. This could save you from facing a burnout in the long run, can positively impact your business and give you the opportunity to let professionals handle specialist tasks at a fraction of the cost! What’s more, you have access to a large pool of skills and can outsource practically any aspect of the business you like! So, what do you do, you ask? What you should really be focusing on as a small business owner is to give more value to your clients, measure results, build ideas and re-strategize your business for the future. Take a look at what you need to know about overcoming the ‘Superhero Syndrome’ Repetitiveness And Systemization In a business, you’ll find that a lot of processes are repetitive and the repetition can in fact, be systemized. Consider a car service centre, for example. When a car has been taken to a service centre, mechanics take their time to gauge the problems with the car before they get down to fixing them. However, when it comes to specialized jobs such as fixing the filters in the car or changing the cover for the seats, mechanics may not be able to handle these tasks themselves. There are specialized contractors and suppliers who provide these products and/or services. When a filter or a seat cover needs to be changed, service centres will not waste their clients? time and their resources by learning how to change these filters internally or manufacturing leather seat covers themselves. They will instead, outsource the work to the professionals who carry out bulk supplies of these certain products outside the service centre. A final markup to the price is added, before handing your car back to you. Ergo, the service centre is benefitting from making additional money out of a job that they are not even doing and are building a name for themselves. This is all thanks to the fabulous job done by the specialist suppliers/vendors, who helped the centre with their timely ? ‘behind-the-scenes’ support. Okay, So How Does It Help My Business? Think about a similar situation for your business. You could outsource everyday functions to a professional Virtual Assistance company like GetFriday and end up saving a lot of time and money. This will ensure that you don’t work your way out of your own business and will also give you the time to re-focus on the core functions while your able team of Virtual Assistant professionals work behind the scenes and handle other aspects of your business for you. On The Lighter Side? It is okay to have delusions of being a superhero. But learning when to get your sidekicks (in this case, your Virtual Assistants) into the picture and sharing the load with them can help you do a better job of running the business and still give you the opportunity to govern the work being done. Let’s take the classic examples of Batman and Robin for instance. Though we know which one of the two shoulders the mantle all the way through, Robin’s character was created for two very simple yet important reasons- 1.Batman needed a friend, a brother and a confidante. Someone he could talk to because a hero can very often find himself ‘alone’ in the humdrum of everyday life. 2.Robin, the Boy Wonder, was not just a wingman, but also a vigilante who kept Batman from making the wrong choices and was always around to ‘help’ Batman fight crime. The reasons are straight forward. No matter how big a superhero you are, you will, at some point, require ‘help’. Whether it is a boy in green hot-pants who comes to the rescue or a resourceful Virtual Assistant, halfway across the world from you, a helping hand is all you need to ease your work burdens and can make you and your business a better one. Got It. What Do I Do Now? Take control and start by making a list that contains the following three columns- Outsourcing what you don’t like to do Outsourcing what you shouldn’t be doing Outsourcing what you can’t do Once you have written down your tasks under each column, it will become easier for you to delegate your work to your professional Virtual Assistants. Your online virtual assistants will work flexibly to understand and learn the ways of your business and probably do your work better than what you would have done! Rest assured, your Virtual Assistants can handle pretty much all your boring business functions and do a lot more specialist tasks that you wouldn’t be able to do yourself i.e. handling all your web page requirements, writing blogs, graphic designing, specialized SEO services, email management, accounting and so much more! Be a real superhero by outsourcing unimportant functions in your business and take out more time to do high-value work, build networks or make time for the family. This will help you focus better on doing the things you love, can do and should do!

Superhero Syndrome At Large Among Small Business Owners Read More »

Being a superhero for your children, spouse, parents or partner is great, but the same cannot be said about your business. Sure, you may run a successful single-office agency and could be the jack of all trades for your business. But do you realize it could be detrimental if you are the master of none? Most entrepreneurs take great pride in completing every task and jump at every small opportunity to be the only ones at the helms of their businesses. Chris Ducker, the author of ‘Virtual Freedom’ has coined a term for this situation and calls it the ‘Superhero Syndrome‘, a prevalent condition wherein entrepreneurs and small business owners believe that they can handle everything on their own without having to delegate or subcontract work. Though there is nothing wrong with handling everything yourself, it is only prudent to outsource dreary business processes to specialized Virtual Assistants at the right time. This could save you from facing a burnout in the long run, can positively impact your business and give you the opportunity to let professionals handle specialist tasks at a fraction of the cost! What’s more, you have access to a large pool of skills and can outsource practically any aspect of the business you like! So, what do you do, you ask? What you should really be focusing on as a small business owner is to give more value to your clients, measure results, build ideas and re-strategize your business for the future. Take a look at what you need to know about overcoming the ‘Superhero Syndrome’ Repetitiveness And Systemization In a business, you’ll find that a lot of processes are repetitive and the repetition can in fact, be systemized. Consider a car service centre, for example. When a car has been taken to a service centre, mechanics take their time to gauge the problems with the car before they get down to fixing them. However, when it comes to specialized jobs such as fixing the filters in the car or changing the cover for the seats, mechanics may not be able to handle these tasks themselves. There are specialized contractors and suppliers who provide these products and/or services. When a filter or a seat cover needs to be changed, service centres will not waste their clients? time and their resources by learning how to change these filters internally or manufacturing leather seat covers themselves. They will instead, outsource the work to the professionals who carry out bulk supplies of these certain products outside the service centre. A final markup to the price is added, before handing your car back to you. Ergo, the service centre is benefitting from making additional money out of a job that they are not even doing and are building a name for themselves. This is all thanks to the fabulous job done by the specialist suppliers/vendors, who helped the centre with their timely ? ‘behind-the-scenes’ support. Okay, So How Does It Help My Business? Think about a similar situation for your business. You could outsource everyday functions to a professional Virtual Assistance company like GetFriday and end up saving a lot of time and money. This will ensure that you don’t work your way out of your own business and will also give you the time to re-focus on the core functions while your able team of Virtual Assistant professionals work behind the scenes and handle other aspects of your business for you. On The Lighter Side? It is okay to have delusions of being a superhero. But learning when to get your sidekicks (in this case, your Virtual Assistants) into the picture and sharing the load with them can help you do a better job of running the business and still give you the opportunity to govern the work being done. Let’s take the classic examples of Batman and Robin for instance. Though we know which one of the two shoulders the mantle all the way through, Robin’s character was created for two very simple yet important reasons- 1.Batman needed a friend, a brother and a confidante. Someone he could talk to because a hero can very often find himself ‘alone’ in the humdrum of everyday life. 2.Robin, the Boy Wonder, was not just a wingman, but also a vigilante who kept Batman from making the wrong choices and was always around to ‘help’ Batman fight crime. The reasons are straight forward. No matter how big a superhero you are, you will, at some point, require ‘help’. Whether it is a boy in green hot-pants who comes to the rescue or a resourceful Virtual Assistant, halfway across the world from you, a helping hand is all you need to ease your work burdens and can make you and your business a better one. Got It. What Do I Do Now? Take control and start by making a list that contains the following three columns- Outsourcing what you don’t like to do Outsourcing what you shouldn’t be doing Outsourcing what you can’t do Once you have written down your tasks under each column, it will become easier for you to delegate your work to your professional Virtual Assistants. Your online virtual assistants will work flexibly to understand and learn the ways of your business and probably do your work better than what you would have done! Rest assured, your Virtual Assistants can handle pretty much all your boring business functions and do a lot more specialist tasks that you wouldn’t be able to do yourself i.e. handling all your web page requirements, writing blogs, graphic designing, specialized SEO services, email management, accounting and so much more! Be a real superhero by outsourcing unimportant functions in your business and take out more time to do high-value work, build networks or make time for the family. This will help you focus better on doing the things you love, can do and should do!

E-Commerce Store – Holiday Season Check List For Increasing Sales

Holiday season is near and this is the time online stores see a surge in sales. But like all things in life you need to be prepared. GetFriday has been around for 10 years now and we have come to understand and learn from our ecommerce clients, the essentials that are required to increase sales during the holiday season. Click on the picture below to see this blog in a slideshare format. Here is a checklist for your quick consumption:   1. This is the best time to launch new products This is the time of the year GetFriday associates get busy with remodeling e-commerce stores, resizing and editing the product images, proof reading the content, uploading products on amazon and rearranging the website display. Most e-commerce firms would consider this as the best time to launch a new product. The chances of succeeding now are far higher than any time later. The known factor about customers is that they are willing to spend more during this season. US retail sales for December 2014 was $442.9 billion – this was an increase of 3.2% over December 2013.   2. Start early with promotions and campaigns A recent study conducted by Oracle Marketing Cloud and Edison Research shows that consumers are doing their holiday shopping early, spending as much as $900 more in the month of October than in December. Start early with planning holiday promotions and campaigns. Our data shows that e-commerce stores start preparing for the holiday season as early as September – October and are ready to launch their campaigns. This give enough time for e-commerce stores to conduct experimental marketing and figure out ways to succeed with customers. With consumers, too willing to take advantage of early shopping discounts and promotions, the timing of promotions and campaigns has gained relevance in recent times. Remember you are competing for the customer wallet. If you are not ready for launching promotions for all your visitors in October, it is advisable to start campaigns with your existing database of clients. Give them the opportunity to take advantage of promotions before your new visitors. It is a known fact that cost of acquiring a new customer is higher than retaining an existing customer. 3. Increase your advertisement budget Let us simplify advertising for you – As you reach more customers with relevant offers, chances of sales increases proportionally. Holiday season is the best time to increase your spending on marketing, as you know for sure customers are looking for your products. If not yours they will land on a competitor’s website. Research shows that social media has a major impact on purchasing choices made by holiday shoppers. “More than half of users (52 percent) say they learned about a product they later purchased because of Twitter, and it’s so convenient to find gift ideas on Twitter that 39 percent say Twitter serves as their new holiday shopping list,” a 2014 Twitter study found. 4. Is your operations ready for holiday season? Make sure operational capabilities are ready for the holiday season. This is the time new customers would be experiencing your product and service, and chances of making them your loyal customer rests with the experience they will gain. It is a common practice with large retailers to hire employees during holiday season to manage customer operations. Learning from this industry practice, you could hire virtual assistants to help manage operations during the holiday season. 5. Is your website spreading the joy – with analytics? Your website needs to reflect the holiday season spirit and create the festive effect. Happy customers tend to buy more. You probably already know that the website is your store front. Look at data generated from your campaigns to optimize your pages. Let the best sellers be visible to your customers. 6. Be ready for customers purchasing from their phones UPS compass in its recent article How America will shop in 2015 quoted IBM data to reveal that mobiles accounted for 45 percent of all 2014 online holiday traffic and for 22.6 percent of online sales, a 27.2 percent gain over the 2013 total More than 50 percent of online shopping traffic came from mobiles during the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday. These numbers drive home the point of need to be prepared with providing customers options of shopping through their mobiles and making their experiences pleasant and user-friendly.

E-Commerce Store – Holiday Season Check List For Increasing Sales Read More »

Holiday season is near and this is the time online stores see a surge in sales. But like all things in life you need to be prepared. GetFriday has been around for 10 years now and we have come to understand and learn from our ecommerce clients, the essentials that are required to increase sales during the holiday season. Click on the picture below to see this blog in a slideshare format. Here is a checklist for your quick consumption:   1. This is the best time to launch new products This is the time of the year GetFriday associates get busy with remodeling e-commerce stores, resizing and editing the product images, proof reading the content, uploading products on amazon and rearranging the website display. Most e-commerce firms would consider this as the best time to launch a new product. The chances of succeeding now are far higher than any time later. The known factor about customers is that they are willing to spend more during this season. US retail sales for December 2014 was $442.9 billion – this was an increase of 3.2% over December 2013.   2. Start early with promotions and campaigns A recent study conducted by Oracle Marketing Cloud and Edison Research shows that consumers are doing their holiday shopping early, spending as much as $900 more in the month of October than in December. Start early with planning holiday promotions and campaigns. Our data shows that e-commerce stores start preparing for the holiday season as early as September – October and are ready to launch their campaigns. This give enough time for e-commerce stores to conduct experimental marketing and figure out ways to succeed with customers. With consumers, too willing to take advantage of early shopping discounts and promotions, the timing of promotions and campaigns has gained relevance in recent times. Remember you are competing for the customer wallet. If you are not ready for launching promotions for all your visitors in October, it is advisable to start campaigns with your existing database of clients. Give them the opportunity to take advantage of promotions before your new visitors. It is a known fact that cost of acquiring a new customer is higher than retaining an existing customer. 3. Increase your advertisement budget Let us simplify advertising for you – As you reach more customers with relevant offers, chances of sales increases proportionally. Holiday season is the best time to increase your spending on marketing, as you know for sure customers are looking for your products. If not yours they will land on a competitor’s website. Research shows that social media has a major impact on purchasing choices made by holiday shoppers. “More than half of users (52 percent) say they learned about a product they later purchased because of Twitter, and it’s so convenient to find gift ideas on Twitter that 39 percent say Twitter serves as their new holiday shopping list,” a 2014 Twitter study found. 4. Is your operations ready for holiday season? Make sure operational capabilities are ready for the holiday season. This is the time new customers would be experiencing your product and service, and chances of making them your loyal customer rests with the experience they will gain. It is a common practice with large retailers to hire employees during holiday season to manage customer operations. Learning from this industry practice, you could hire virtual assistants to help manage operations during the holiday season. 5. Is your website spreading the joy – with analytics? Your website needs to reflect the holiday season spirit and create the festive effect. Happy customers tend to buy more. You probably already know that the website is your store front. Look at data generated from your campaigns to optimize your pages. Let the best sellers be visible to your customers. 6. Be ready for customers purchasing from their phones UPS compass in its recent article How America will shop in 2015 quoted IBM data to reveal that mobiles accounted for 45 percent of all 2014 online holiday traffic and for 22.6 percent of online sales, a 27.2 percent gain over the 2013 total More than 50 percent of online shopping traffic came from mobiles during the five days from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday. These numbers drive home the point of need to be prepared with providing customers options of shopping through their mobiles and making their experiences pleasant and user-friendly.

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