Best Ways To Boost Your Business in 2017.

It has been predicted that since the 2008 to 2010 recession, 2017 may turn out to be the most challenging one for middle-market companies. Despite the headwinds ahead of us in 2017, the U.S. economy grew at a substantial comparative rate towards the end of 2016. Most economists do not expect this growth to continue, with predictions for GDP growth to be slightly to significantly lower for 2017.

The U.S. economy has continued to exhibit remarkable resilience despite the many economic and political challenges that threatened to derail it in 2016: the presidential elections, threats of global terrorism affecting many countries, slowing growth in China, and rock bottom commodities prices pulling down world economies and stock markets. However, a greater degree of economic, political, regulatory, and capital market volatility is to be expected in the coming year for the U.S. economy and middle-market companies.

While U.S. private companies are expecting to grow their revenue by an average of 8% over the next 12 months, over one-third of private companies are expecting double-digit growth! I don’t intend to dishearten or scare anyone, but the question is- how to achieve these levels of growth in an uncertain economy?

Below are a few ‘general’ predictions for the new year, which may or may not be true, but can always be helpful to know.

Competitive E-commerce

All of us know that the markets in the US are generally developed and the number of people chasing the markets has been growing faster than the market. As a result, things are going to get tougher since the global e-commerce market is saturated.

Increase in Online Fraud and Hacks

It is becoming easier than ever before for hackers to make use of big data tools to assimilate details about their targeted victims, as the push for convenience drives retailers to expand the ways in which they digitally engage with consumers. In doing so, retailers are amassing huge amounts of personal data about their customers beyond credit card information; everything from buying habits to location is tracked. Both large as well as small retailers need to take extra measures to protect their data; no one is too small to be a target.

Smarter Customer Relationship Management

As business intelligence grows, smarter data discovery will emerge as a major force in CRM analytics in 2017.With some recent acquisitions in the industry, CRM vendors are positioning themselves at the frontline of new developments in smart data discovery, which leverages machine learning and other technologies to detect patterns in data and transform them into stories that humans can understand. This technological solution will increasingly shift humans away from actually analysing business data themselves to vetting the accuracy of machine-generated insights.

Reduced Labor

Especially the marketing and advertising industry will reduce human labor, with automation becoming ‘the thing’ for the year. Like I have repeatedly said in my posts, technology is growing at a very fast pace and some small business owners have still not understood the importance of being up-to-date with technology.

This year, let the town know that you exist, by optimizing your online presence. 10% of the budget spent on advertising is better than remaining unknown to the world and not earning the extra 10%. Contact HyperEffects to chart out a tailor-made business marketing strategy for your company and see your business show up on television ads, press releases and on major channel partners. Get a website for your company, highlight offers, features, promotions and news on your website and in your email footers, invoices and letter signatures. Start social accounts with Twitter.com, Facebook.com and LinkedIn.com and post articles. Go where your audience is on the web. If your potential audience hangs out on forums, then post to those forums. Become a trusted advisor. Get your supporters to refer you.

So, back to automation, in 2017, marketing automation will be more important than ever before. Manual labor will be taken out of most essential marketing functions, such as social media posts and email blasts. This automation will help companies reclaim valuable man-hours. Marketing teams will move back to focussing their energy on bigger projects, monitoring campaign success and customer engagement more efficiently.