subject: How To Minimize Costs Without Hampering Your Business Model? [print this page] The years 2008 and 2009 have been particularly bad for businesses around the globe. With the economic collapse and subsequent recession, companies and organizations all over the world are faced with the pressing need of reducing their cost expenditures. This becomes especially difficult for businesses when they also need to focus their funds on advertising and marketing channels in order to sustain leaning profit margins. This is certainly a dilemma for many businesses in the face of a crashing economy.
Here are some great tips to reduce your costs without hampering your business mode:
Move towards E-Marketing
E-marketing or online marketing is a very powerful and cost effective way to market your business. It involves a series of online ad and marketing activities, such as sending newsletters, special offers and loyalty schemes to customers directly through email. It involves minimal or no cost and ensures maximum delivery of your marketing message. Moreover, it encourages users to visit your website and check out your products and services. You get massive online traffic to your site at the cost of a little time and effort to design and send your marketing material.
Join B2B Marketplaces
Online business marketplaces, such as e-bidding platforms, are excellent forums for businesses to come together and seek potential buyers and service providers. You can register on global e-bidding platforms and get in touch with other businesses in your industry. Often with no or very little registration costs, an e-bidding platform can bring you substantial advantages. On typical e-bidding platforms, you can either post RFBs (Request for Bids) to advertise your project or service need, or place bids on the listed projects in order to try to win new work or a project. This is an extremely cost effective way of business procurement.
Determine the Total Cost of your Business Software
Make sure that your business software is not costing you heavily in the long run in hidden costs. Often, businesses are tied into lengthy maintenance and technical support contracts for business software that gets very costly when seen as a whole. If this is the case with you, consider opting for online business software that saves you the costs of set-up fee, annual subscriptions etc. and provides you with free maintenance, technical back-up and data protection. You can often also get free upgrades that will keep the software up to date. All you need to do is register and make payments online (which, again, is often cheaper) and the service would be running in a matter of hours.
Hire Virtual Assistance
Virtual assistance is a much more cost effective option than hiring in-house employees. In times of economic recession, staff costs can be very expensive to manage. Therefore, hire virtual assistant services that help you cut staff costs without losing the quality of services. Virtual assistance can perform an extensive range of tasks and activities depending on their expertise. From simple data entry or secretarial services to complex market research functions ... you can find a virtual assistant for all your requirements.
Review your Products & Services
Examine all the potential products and services offered by your business and review their sales figures and profitability. If you think some products or services are not the best earners, its best to eliminate them or reduce focus on them, and instead focus on pushing the products and services that are high profit earners. This strategy will help you increase your overall revenue.
Disclaimer : Sabra Easterday is the owner and founder of MatchB2B (matchb2b.net). Sabra is also a lawyer with a special interest in business issues and e-marketplaces. Notwithstanding that Sabra Easterday is a lawyer, nothing in this article and no services of MatchB2B or its website are legal services and no attorney-client relationship exists between any reader of this article or user, customer or potential customer of MatchB2B, and MatchB2B, its website or Sabra Easterday.
