Media training 101 for small businesses

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Great news: you just scored a big press interview to promote your business. The story will expose your brand to the perfect new audience and drive meaningful traffic to your website. So…don't blow it. Yes, just as quickly as the excitement for the opportunity arrived, the realization that you now have to do an interview sets in. I get it—press interviews can absolutely be intimidating. The resulting coverage represents a significant opportunity to acquire new customers, drive sales, or raise awareness, and you want to be sure to represent your brand well and really compel the audience to check out your company. On top of that, you have to contend with adrenaline and nerves in the moment. You may be thinking, "So many other business owners are so polished and articulate in their interviews. How am I going to pull that off?" Deep breath. A successful interview is usually the result of good media training: preparation and practice in advance of an interview. I've tr...
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4 automated workflows for your business analytics tools

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Without data, you have to rely on gut instinct or anecdotal evidence when making decisions.

That's not the best way to grow your business. Instead of feelings, you should rely on data, so you can make decisions based on what your customers actually do or need.

Data analytics tools help get you started, but if you rely on manual data entry to connect analysis to action, feedback can get stale and you'll miss your window of opportunity. Zapier can help you integrate your analytics tools with your website, your team, and your reporting tools, so that incorporating feedback becomes an immediate, natural part of your workflow.

Zapier lets you connect the apps you use each day to reduce tedious tasks and free up time for the work that matters most. New to Zapier? See how it works.

Analyze website performance and traffic data

No one should have to tell you something is wrong with your website. The performance of such essential infrastructure should receive the kind of constant monitoring that’s possible only with automation.

These Zaps integrate communication tools with services that monitor your website, so you can get a notification the moment there’s an issue.

The ability to automatically monitor your site isn’t only for catching issues. You can also analyze the kinds of traffic arriving at your website and use that data to inform your marketing and lead-generation programs.

Feed user engagement data into analytics tools

Smart businesses capture as much user engagement data as they can. Your monitoring tools might prove your website is functional, but your users will still suffer if they have to swat away irrelevant messages or endure repetitive phone calls.

Chatbots can automate some of this user engagement, especially lead cultivation and customer support, but hands-off approaches can easily become more annoying than convenient. Your chatbots won’t be effective for long if you can’t improve them.

Use these automated workflows to connect your chatbots to data analytics tools so you can track their performance over time.

Phone support can be frustrating for customers who get lost in automated menus and feel it's hard to connect with someone who can help.

Make it easier to spot trends in support needs by connecting your phone or SMS tools with your analytics program or project management program, ensuring each call creates data you can analyze and act on.

Automatically monitor your sales strategy

It’s easy to let sales consume every hour of the day. But if you don’t pause to reflect on your methods, you risk sacrificing long-term victories for small, short-term wins.

High-performing sales teams take monitoring seriously. Basing your sales strategy on data means you can test new things, see their impact, and improve over time, letting you make bigger, better, and faster sales.

Use these automated workflows to connect Google Analytics and Zoho Analytics to your advertising, purchasing, and customer management tools.

Learn more about how to turn Google Analytics insights into actionable tasks.

Tracking sales progress is easiest across integrated tools, but once a sale moves to the meeting or phone call stage, data can be more elusive. Use these Zaps to keep track of new meetings and calendar invites.

Get high-level insight into team performance

Internal analysis is important, too. With Zapier, you can automatically feed your team’s actions into project management tools, make those new actions trackable, and connect that improved work back to your analytics tools.

To start this feedback loop, use these workflows to help you automatically turn your team’s communication and collaboration into trackable actions.

Before you can properly assess your team’s performance, that data has to be in a central place. These workflows connect to project management and to-do list apps, so you can easily track your team’s actions.

To complete the loop, connect your team’s work back to your analytics tools.

Learn from your results and repeat the cycle

Zapier automation enables the feedback cycle to spin with less effort, meaning you can act faster and iterate based on more up-to-date information. Without working harder, your team can be more efficient and effective. Every action from your team and reaction from your customer becomes an insight that your organization can use to improve.



from The Zapier Blog https://ift.tt/2ZZxV0Q

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