I am writing this piece, reminiscing about my past vacations. In particular, I remember my last vacation in 2019 when I was in St. Lucia. It was at that time I wrote Vacation Anxiety – The best thing for your new business. If you haven’t read it, I would highly recommend this quick read. It will anchor you for this inverse perspective…

Lockdown anxiety is the new reality for most business owners. It is a feeling of uncertainty of the future. We all hope that this angst should soon pass as lockdown restrictions are beginning to ease. Most businesses have accepted technology such as zoom and cloud computing in attempts to feel as though home is the new office. Unfortunately, not all businesses can benefit from working remotely. Retail shops, restaurants along with other brick and mortar operations have suffered the most during these challenging times.

Businesses will eventually re-open. As vaccines are being distributed, many business owners believe that life will be back to normal and everything will resume where it had left off. Unfortunately, the pandemic has other plans and we must respect its’ undiscriminating power. Lockdown anxiety is a powerful emotion. However if channeled correctly, it could be the biggest asset for most entrepreneurs.

The Lockdown – A Blessing In Disguise

It is said that true wealth is your “Time and Freedom”. The lockdown inadvertently provided us with both – whether we like it or not. Prior to the lockdown, most entrepreneurs would be engaged in the never ending day-to-day grind of working on their business. The eternal dance of perfecting business systems and processes.

Speaking from my own experience – The Lockdown granted me time to re-evaluate my macro goals, both for my businesses and personally. By pressing the pause button on life, I was positioned to view business from 30,000 feet.

A developed business is like a moving train. You can make small tweaks while in motion, however the tracks are set from day one. It’s hard to stop a train with momentum. However, with the engines of business slowing down due to the lockdown, we now have opportunities to pivot and/or pick optional tracks or even change our destination altogether. From an elevated view you can see if, indeed, the destination that you once set out for is still where you want to end up.

The pandemic had a massive impact on every person throughout the world. Governments had to adapt, industries had to reposition themselves. What customers value prior to the pandemic has shifted. The entire business and consumer landscape has changed.

Take this moment to re-evaluate your business. It would be foolish to expect “business as usual” once everything opens up again. It is absolutely critical to notice the nuance differences in the post pandemic world in order to be successful. Businesses that do not accept this reality will suffer a painful demise.

There are too many businesses that were prosperous at one time, yet didn’t adapt to change. They didn’t take time off to see where they were heading, and eventually they derailed. Organizations such as Blockbuster, Kodak, and Toys R Us have all been replaced by businesses’ that were adept to the changing consumer landscape. Netflix and Amazon are perfect examples of companies that are proficient at adapting to change. To these forward thinking organizations, the pandemic simply expedited the inevitable.

Entrepreneurs make their best decisions while living in the moment and accepting their new environment. Change is great. New opportunities and ideas become clearer and a new path is forged ahead.

I believe the pandemic to be a wake up call for all entrepreneurs to re-evaluate their business goals and realign their tracks to success. It’s the perfect time to make the necessary changes in order to adapt to the new world that we are about to enter into.

As I do look forward to eventually taking my family on an epic vacation. The reason for the time off is different. I miss travelling, dining, wine tastings and all that comes with visiting new places and cultures around the world. When it comes to business though – I think these last twelve (12) months were nothing more than one long corporate retreat. A time to reposition your business plan and relaunch. It’s all about perspective.

Cheers,

Lyle Patel

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My other passion for Investment properties had a lot to do with the adoption of the term Digital Assets. Thus, I’ve imparted my passive investment views and applied them to digital technology.

I define any digital asset as “something that adds value or makes money”. Alternatively, a liability is “anything that costs you money or depletes value”.

With this viewpoint, I believe that a website or a portal should add value to the company’s mission and eventually its financial bottom line – Thus, make money!

Selecting a website domain is just as easy as registering a corporate entity. This can be accomplished in under fifteen minutes in most jurisdictions.  But, that is just the beginning. Building a site and making money off that website (or business) is where the work begins. Facing this challenge and implementing an online system that stays true to its mission and automatically produces a positive cash flow is fundamental. Until you achieve this your website will remain a liability.

Here are a few things from an elevated view that needs to be established en route to making your online digital presence an “Asset”. We will dive into each category in subsequent articles:

• Define your niche and focus on it only
• Be real with your onsite content
• Use audience-building techniques to promote your content
• Track and Monetize your traffic
• Listen to your customer reviews of products/services
• Offer expertise & Share stories

Putting together systems and processes to constantly improve the above metrics is essential to a long-term digital strategy and will ensure that your website and/or portal remains your company’s digital asset.

As you work through your online digital asset plan line by line, it will become clearer what processes you need to focus on and what your priorities should be. Keep track of your costs and review web analytics and customer reviews regularly.

Make sure that you view your web assets like you do with your business. You will only get out of it whatever you put into it. So make sure that you are constantly working with your digital assets team and continually growing your assets.

And if you need help with your digital assets or creating a brand new digital platforms to improve your online presence, you can contact us to start with your project! Start growing online today!

Cheers.

The post Digital Assets vs Liabilities first appeared on CodeTactic | SEO Vancouver Web Design | Digital Marketing.

The post Digital Assets vs Liabilities appeared first on CodeTactic | SEO Vancouver Web Design | Digital Marketing.

It’s in the DNA of every business to continually grow.  Marketing systems that have been put in place should be designed to attract customers, increase sales and compete in order to sustain their existence. Marketing is the business engine that renews existing customers and funnels in new ones. Unfortunately, many small business owners struggle to know just how much money they need to be spending to make sure that these marketing engines are continually churning.

There is no one-shoe-fits-all answer. So much depends on the type of business you have (retail, online, product, service), your business objectives, and revenue.

Here are some basic tips that should help you to come up with a marketing budget that suits your small business.

General Demographic Profile

In a nutshell, your marketing budget should be a percentage of your gross revenue. A simple guideline is that B2B organizations should spend a minimum of 3 and 5% of their revenue on marketing.

For B2C entities, the proportion is often higher—between 6 and 10%. This is because B2C companies usually require re-investment into multiple marketing channels to reach various customer segments.

In order to finely tune your targeted budget, you need to see what the common denominator for your industry is and what your competitors are spending.  There are many online analytics tools that can provide you some basic competitor information; however, knowing their company size will help you understand their marketing budget.  It is not essential that you match spending, but you should go after the low-hanging fruits – cost-effective and easy conversions. Any good online consultant will help you decipher the best marketing strategy for your business.

Business development banks worldwide research trends annually and their findings are publicly available.  Organic startup businesses spend very little as their revenues are yet to be realized. Usually $9,000 to $24,000 per year.  Generally speaking, businesses that are in their early years of consistent revenues average just over $30,000 a year, while those with 19 to 50 employees spend double that amount. Organizations with 50 or more employees lean towards marketing budgets in excess of $100,000.

Visualize – Set defined goals

You need to be clear on your marketing goals.  These need to be measurable and very specific. For example – Do you want to get more visitors to a specific page on your website and take a specific action? If so, how many people, what demographic, and over what time period? Alternatively, do you want to get people to visit your physical outlet store for a free sample or consultation? What kind of customers would you most like to attract? How many of them do you want to come in?  How much growth can your business sustain with your current business systems?

Setting your goals will get you into the right mindset to plan what needs to be done—and what kind of investment will be needed. Physical retail stores would focus more on search criteria that involves general product or industry, directions, maps, availability hours, etc.  Online merchants, on the other hand, would focus more on content and searchable details.

Visualization is an important part of realization… Imagine what your ideal customer base would be like.  Think about its demographics and visualize the desired customer personas you want to do business with…

Does your current value proposition cater to your desired customer base?  Fixing this is the vital first step. Then you need to clearly explain the following: How will you cater to your customers’ needs and why should they visit your site or visit your retail shop? From there, you can decide on how to better design your marketing campaigns to create online assets/content that is more likely to lead to sales.

Once you’ve defined your marketing budget and set forth your action plan – review it on a regular basis and analyze whether your spending is achieving the goals you’ve set.

Consider all your potential costs

Like any business, marketing has many moving parts. We at CodeTactic specialize in developing and managing digital assets for a business.  We recommend allocating your marketing budget to the following categories. You can adjust the amounts over time based on what’s most effective.

Website: The cost of your website includes the original design and development costs including hosting. It also includes paying to keep the content fresh and up-to-date (This keeps Google happy). Ensure that your website developer has included analytics correctly built-in. That way, you can track who’s visiting and from where.  This information is crucial and will help you identify and quantify which marketing efforts are paying off.

Social media: Ever since the Google Hummingbird algorithm update; Search engines now use SMM along with SEO for organic page rankings. Set aside some money to invest in online advertising through social media platforms that make sense for your business like Facebook and LinkedIn.  

Online advertising: Organic search results are the ideal marketing play for most businesses with an online storefront.  However, in some competitive situations, online advertising is also recommended. For search engine advertising like Google Ads, plan for a minimum of $500 per month budget to be effective. As you monitor and refine your online advertising, you’ll be able to become more efficient with your ad spending and budget more accurately.

E-newsletters: Your best customers are your existing customers.  So sending regular updates to your clients helps keep your business on top of their minds and encourages repeat business or upsells. Planning for, writing, and using online tools to send out this material all require time and resources; so a small budget should be allotted for this task.

Videos: If a picture is worth a thousand words; a video is worth a million!  Every small business should make use of video marketing. The costs involved can include everything from hiring a professional camera crew and editor or simply using your smartphone so you can shoot the video yourself.  We now live in an era where people want information fast. Videos are the best tools available for online engagement. 

Keep track of costs and adjust regularly

As you work through your marketing budget line by line, it will become clearer what you can afford, according to your priorities. Keep track of your costs and review web analytics regularly.

Assess your marketing budget quarterly and annually to see if your projections are aligned with your actual spending. By monitoring your marketing costs and refining your efforts, you will be able to generate more accurate budgets as time goes on.

The post What’s the ideal marketing budget for a small business? first appeared on CodeTactic | SEO Vancouver Web Design | Digital Marketing.

The post What’s the ideal marketing budget for a small business? appeared first on CodeTactic | SEO Vancouver Web Design | Digital Marketing.

Vacation anxiety is real. A feeling that the unpredictable can happen when you are away from your business. This living nightmare deters most small business owners from taking vacations.  I too was the guy that would constantly check emails at the beach. My business was in its infancy stage and my world view of business was different. A paradigm shift to how I now view the business.

Budding entrepreneurs should know what can be done to minimize the angst and understand why this is a positive emotion that all businesses need to go through during the early stages of the business development cycle.

Vacations play a vital role in the personal growth of the entrepreneur as well as the business.

Entrepreneur

Recall the adage “Time is Money”…  To the astute entrepreneur, the most valuable resource in the world is time.  It’s the one thing that money can’t buy. A vacation is nothing more than a defined time-slot devoted to things that are most important to you.  A vacation could be a weekend playing tennis, a group of old friends going away for a week or a grand family holiday. That’s the beauty of a vacation – you decide what you like to do and make it happen.  

The successful entrepreneur maintains a unique work & life perspective that is balanced by a well deserved holiday.

If you’re like most people, you decided on the path of entrepreneurship because you were attracted to the autonomous lifestyle that a business could provide.  Your business should be able to deliver the freedom that you were seeking. If not, then you don’t have a business – the business has you. A unique situation where you bought yourself a job and your boss is a tyrant.

Business

You’ve overcome many challenges as a successful business owner, so how can you possibly leave business on autopilot and in the hands of your employees while you go sailing in the Caribbean?

In today’s world, any successful small business needs to be a separate entity from the owner. Entrepreneurs need to look at their business as a machine that can operate on its own.

With proper systems in place, a business should operate without the entrepreneur.  This fact was re-enforced when I recently read WTF (Willing to Fail) by Brian Scudamore. He simply states that people don’t fail, systems do.  In a nutshell, systems run your business and your people run the systems.

Your vacation should be viewed as a “soft launch” for your business. A time when you feel that the systems by which your business operates are sufficient to function independently. Any issues faced during your holiday is an opportunity to improve upon your systems…  And therein lies the true function of the entrepreneur – To work on the business, rather than in it. Business development is nothing more than the continual process of improving your business’s systems.

Vacations are great and anxiety can be reduced by understanding the benefits a holiday has on the entrepreneur as a person as well as the positive impact that a vacation has on improving your business’s operation.

While in St Lucia I had to ask a local why this part of the Carribean is referred to as the West Indies…  It turns out that Columbus was in pursuit of “Spice Islands”. He decided on trying a new approach – head West to get to India.  Instead, he discovered the Antilles. Since then the name West Indies was used to refer to all the eastern Caribbean islands. So for Columbus and all the Entrepreneurs of the world – Don’t be afraid to fail or make a mistake.  Think of these as opportunities to grow and improve the way you navigate through life.

Cheers.

The post Vacation anxiety: The best thing for your new business first appeared on CodeTactic | SEO Vancouver Web Design | Digital Marketing.

The post Vacation anxiety: The best thing for your new business appeared first on CodeTactic | SEO Vancouver Web Design | Digital Marketing.

UI and UX are the sex words of today’s website design.  The User Interface (UI) of a website or app is the imaginative element behind how the website functions. The User Experience (UX) of any website is the blueprint of the website’s design.

Having an engaging, practical design that makes your website easy to view is the main purpose of the UI and UX

But, in order to structure a UX and UI, what are the main components that you should know?

1) It’s all about the User Experience (UX)

When designing a new website, the most compelling thing that one should be focusing on is the experience of the user. Will this design be naturally coherent for your users? Will they be able to browse through the structure easily and find it clearly? Navigable?

Before looking into any visuals, you must be clear on how your design will work for the end user’s experience.

Having an understanding of what your end users think they know about UI and UX plays a vital role in how they will use your site. Try to recognize what the user anticipates happening when they click on a certain button or where this will take them. This reminds me of going to see Penn & Teller or  Copperfield in Las Vegas. We know what to expect from various illusions, yet we get immense entertainment from the direction and misdirections as our eyes follow with amazement.

Similarly, keep in mind that the design of the website is not meant to be for you.  But rather meant for your visitors. They need to be directed (or misdirected).  The eyes tend to follow what they expect to see.  The User Experience is about engaging and directing users in a natural way.

2) Rapid loading is crucial

If you design an understandable and coherent interface but it takes too long to load, all efforts would have been for nothing. The speed of sight is essentially the speed of light, plus the speed needed for our brains to form a mental image. Extremely quick!  If your site takes too long to load, a big percentage of users disengage altogether. Everything should function at the speed of the user – Thus the loading velocity is vital for UX.  The Jeff Bezos’ of the world realized this early on and has created platforms such as AWS to deliver lightning-quick content.

Visual elements like videos, images, etc. must be optimized and enhanced to load rapidly. Reorganizing the majority of your website’s UX may be required in order to remove visual elements that are irrelevant or unneeded.

Rapid-loading websites allow your users to relate with more confidence with your brand, as both the user and your product/service are in sync.  This benefits the complete users experience. All UX or UI elements on a website must positively affect your site’s quickness.

I have recently recommended clients and even our own CodeTactic site to be on the Amazon Web Services platform to take advantage of its CDN and rapid content loading.

3) Mobile development.

Every website’s UI and UX must be improved for Mobile use. Approx 64% of users over the internet use mobile devices.  More than half of these mobile users that report bad browsing experiences would not interact with the poorly represented business.

Designing a mobile UX is a necessity. Mobile development is inevitable and it will guarantee more traffic to your website.  A Mobile friendly user experience means that images need to be optimized to properly show on devices and text ratios are easy to navigate via thumb or index motions. Many novice website developers simply make a site to be “Responsive”.  I hate this word, as it implies that mobile devices are an afterthought and not a pro-active design blueprint.

4) Smooth design

Every element of your website must be consistent with each other. Users must be able to interact with your content and navigate your website, learning more about your brand without losing focus on what they need.

Brands must be able to provide a coherent and smooth website design, helping their users to browse their sites with a seamless structure. All components must perform together perfectly.

5) Simple but engaging UI

Websites don’t have to be mind-boggling. A good design is about building a simple, friendly and gracious experience for the end user. Keep your UI simple, with relevant content and navigation menus. There is no need to make your website overly full of unnecessary visual elements.

Less is definitely more when it comes to user experience. Users must be able to identify the key components of your site. Put your website to the test and pretend you are the end user for a little while. Are you able to find the key elements like the “Contact” page? Does the website’s distribution work visually?

Keep in mind what is relevant to your site and brand, and what is not. There is no need to provide more information than needed. Seek for the meticulous yet, simple UI where your users can easily find what they need to know first hand.

You don’t need an overwhelming number of options, and you don’t need a ton of information cranked into one spot. Try to eliminate oversaturation and condense your website down into its core functions. Make sure users can easily find information and nothing is overcrowding your UI.

Conclusion

Use the KISS method (Keep It Simple Stupid). Keeping your UI and UX design simple and creative will function better for your users. It’s all about the user – Trying to overcrowd your website with too many visual contents or navigation menus will complicate your user experience on the site.

Overall, your website must run smoothly and have an engaging display. Maintaining your website’s speed is also imperative when designing.  This impacts the user’s interest to engage the user with your site or back out and continue browsing the internet. Lastly, Mobile development is fundamental in today’s social world.

Would you like to have a team of web developers and professional designers to help improve your website? Provide your clients with an engaging site. Contact us today to start.

The post 5 Essentials for UX/UI Everyone should know first appeared on CodeTactic | SEO Vancouver Web Design | Digital Marketing.

The post 5 Essentials for UX/UI Everyone should know appeared first on CodeTactic | SEO Vancouver Web Design | Digital Marketing.