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How much does it cost to host a website?

Posted on by Phil

Website hosting is a necessary part of running a website. By “necessary” we mean that it won’t function without it and is an absolute requirement. It also comes with its own set of costs. Website hosting can cost as little as $8 per month and if it includes a comprehensive maintenance package – at the high end can be in excess of $1000 per month. So with such a big ballpark, how much should website hosting really cost? And is just hosting actually what you are receiving if you’re paying towards the higher end of the spectrum? Are you comparing apples with apples? How do you know you’re getting the best solution and not being ripped off!

The simple answer is, the cost to host a website ‘depends’… It depends on whether your website is uploaded to a server and left to its own devices or if it is proactively maintained and if so, what additional services or value are you getting from your provider?

Things pricing to host a website can depend on are:

  • The type of hosting service/package
  • Web Server Quality
  • Web Server Location
  • Self Managed – If you’re hosting your website yourself and responsible for any and all updates/upgrades
  • Managed Hosting – If a website is hosted on your behalf, by a marketing or web design company – And what you are getting for this service
  • If server upgrades are included – like anything tech, software and hardware outdates.
  • If you are actually also getting proactive maintenance on the site and the server
  • And more…

Web hosting is a complicated beast and unless you’re into IT (like REALLY into it) it’s something that you’ll probably never actually understand completely. But since your website can’t exist without it, we’ll attempt and explain briefly what it is and why it costs what it does in this article.

What is Website Hosting?

When a website is hosted this means it is stored on a server. A server is basically a computer. This computer is where your website “lives”. When you type in a website, what happens is that it gets the information from that server computer and then shows it on your screen. This means the quality of the server itself can dramatically affect the performance of a website. The power of the server (or computer) means that the faster it will go, the better your website will perform. This is just one factor in website performance, but it is an important one to understand.

And just like computers, Servers come in all sizes, and can be configured in a number of ways too. The power, speed and configuration of the server your website is on is defined by the ‘type’ of hosting your may have.What are the types of website hosting?

As mentioned above the type of website hosting or the configuration of the server can play a very important role in your website performance and also dramatically affect the cost to host a website. Three main types of hosting you might come across are Shared Hosting, VPS Hosting, and Dedicated Hosting.

Shared Hosting

Shared hosting is the cheapest form of hosting because you are literally sharing the load with a bunch of other websites. Think about the cost of flying a plane. The more people that can fit on the plane the cheaper the ticket becomes. This is because you’re sharing the flight with (in some cases) hundreds of other people.

The downside of that is you don’t necessarily know who you’re sharing the flight with. Or going to be sitting next to. If Google is the moderator of aviation law, and they decide one of those passengers is unsavoury then this could also affect the quality of another website on the same server. It gets tarred with the same brush.

Cloud Containers

Cloud Containers primarily offer a huge amount of control for developers. (So this is often our first choice for hosting clients websites). It means we can do more, faster, and maintain up-to-date infrastructure without too many technical headaches – both for us and you…

VPS Hosting

VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. This means that a website can be partitioned off and essentially separated from the other website on the physical server. In saying that though each website may still need to use ‘shared resources’ Let’s go back to that flight we spoke about above. VPS could be compared to travelling in First class. You’re still using the same aircraft, the same fuel and crew for example, but you have more room of your own. Even though you’re on the same flight, you’re “on the other side of the curtain”, separated from the rest.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated website hosting, is just as the name suggests. Instead of you being on a plane, you own a private aircraft. You have the whole entire thing to yourself. The size of the plane may vary depending on your requirements, and this too will affect the cost of hosting a website. As expected, dedicated hosting is the most expensive option.

How does Server Location Affect Website Hosting Costs?

We all expect websites to load lightning-fast these days. In fact, If your website takes longer than three seconds to load, you could be losing a lot of your website visitors. here’s 11 statistics you need to know.

Whilst websites themselves need to be also built and optimised well to begin with, they need to be maintained too (something the Website Performance Booster can also help with can dramatically help with). However, the distance between your site visitors and your server can also affect this dramatically too.

If we go back to our aircraft analogy, and think about the time it takes to fly from New Zealand to Australia, versus the UK or US, then it stands to reason that server location can affect your website speed and in turn the cost to host a website.

Shorter distances between you and the VPN server improve internet speed. For example, if you’re in the UK and connecting to a server in Australia, it is a substantial distance for a data packet to travel. So the nearer a server is located, the faster the internet speed will be.

So what is a reasonable price to pay for website hosting?

As mentioned in the first section of this article, Website Hosting is complicated. There are literally hundreds of variables. The most important thing to understand with websites, in general, is that they are no longer an online brochure. A website is a sales tool. And these days, a website is like a staff member – one who can sell 24/7. A website is an investment and always a work in progress, and this should be reflected in what you are prepared to pay to host and maintain it. If you want it to perform at its peak it needs time, money and energy invested.

You wouldn’t own a private jet, or expect to travel on a plane and expect it to run on 91 Octane! You need the right mix of fuel to keep it running well in order to safely reach your destination (your goals). And your website should be no different. You should be consistently setting new goals and objectives for your website to achieve – just like your staff!

At Back9 we are not a web hosting company. Therefore we only provide a managed hosting service coupled with website and server maintenance. We have found this to be the best solution for the broad range of clients we have websites hosted for.

So what is a reasonable price to pay for website hosting? Well, again that depends 100% on you! To give you an idea, our packages at back9 for website hosting and related services, range from $54 + GST per month – 199 + GST per month (with discounts for paying quarterly) depending on requirements. This offers server maintenance and upgrades, plugin updates and then upgrades (at the higher level) quarterly website performance maintenance too. And if that keeps your website performing at its peak then that is priceless.

What do I get with my Back9 hosting package?

It’s fair to ask about Website Maintenance and Hosting. And What Are You Actually Paying For? So the cost of hosting a website with us includes the cost of that lease (or a portion thereof) and depending on the hosting package you choose, our service can include:

  • Hosting set up that suits your website and business
  • SSL certificate, set up and renewal
  • 99% uptime
  • Security updates and website data backups
  • Server upgrades as and when required (generally every 2-3 years)
  • website theme, or plugin upgrades, as required,
  • website audits/testing and repairs and maintenance
  • Updates to website content as required
  • And more.

To find out more about the specific hosting packages, click the button below or get in touch

BUTTON FOR BACK9 HOSTING PRICES

Which is worse, a bad website or no website?

Posted on by Phil

With over 5.6 billion Google searches per day, this question seems like a no-brainer, right? Surely it’s better to have a website even if it is bad rather than having no website at all? If Google can find your website and shows it to the right people it should theoretically create leads. And therefore, generate revenue. But is that really the case if your website is “bad”?

Most people search Google for the answers to their common questions, online shopping, or research. But what happens when the information you’re looking for is on a website that looks like it was created in the early 2000s? What if it looks strange on your phone–or doesn’t even work at all? What if loads slower than “surfing” on dial-up internet? Are you going to stay on that site and trust/buy that product or service? Research tells us that no – you won’t! With around 83% of people expecting a website to load in 3 seconds or less, today’s consumers are impatient, demanding, and downright egotistical. We want it now – so give us what we need!

What makes a website bad?

There are many factors to consider when talking about what makes a website “bad”. Some of those key factors are:

  • the design of the site
  • user experience (how easy it is to navigate etc)
  • speed of the site
  • Fonts
  • colours,
  • images,
  • lack of information

We could go on and on.

But why does any of this matter? Well, when it comes to website design, studies show that 75% of your website’s credibility comes from the design which means you’ve got to make a great first impression!

There are a few key design fundamentals that you need to tick off the list to ensure you are building credibility from the get-go. For example, having a professional logo, clear-concise information, beautiful imagery and ease of use help ensure your visitors have a great experience while on your site. But there’s an elephant in the room that we haven’t mentioned yet; Google. Google can smell a bad website from a mile away. We’ve already mentioned some of the key things that Google looks at when ranking websites. Some of these key things are loading speed and user experience, but there is a lot more to it than that. In 2021, Google looks at images (and if they’re tagged correctly) if your site isn’t secure, if it isn’t updated regularly with high-quality content, and much more.

Huh, you’ve got no website?!

What about businesses that have no website? How do they have an online presence? Well, there are other options to get online. For example, your Facebook could be used as an interim solution until you feel that you require a website. Or you might link to your Instagram page in the short term. But how does this impact your credibility? If you don’t have a website you could be seen as a hobby business or one that hasn’t taken the next step to becoming fully professional. Depending on your industry, this could potentially cost your business leads and revenue.

Older, more established businesses that don’t have a website may do better because they have an existing customer base. And many continue to get business from regulars or from word-of-mouth referrals. But they could be missing out on a huge opportunity to get new people in the door. At a minimum, every business should have a listing on Google My Business. This will make it so that if someone searches for the business name directly the right business will pop up. Then at least customers can get directions or call from there directly.

My Verdict on bad vs no website

With everything taken into consideration, I think that no website is worse than having a bad website! This might surprise you as we are of course visual people here at Back9 Creative but the tipping point for this opinion is that trust factor. You need to build trust with your customers and how can they really, fully, wholeheartedly trust a business that doesn’t have a website! Customers want to read about your services, how you can help them, who you are as people and what your business believes in, and without a website to communicate this information, it can be very difficult to gain credibility over your competitors. If you have a website up with at least some of that information, you probably understand the value of being online already. Just keep in mind that if you have a bad website, it might not convert, and you can read our Content Specialist Dallen’s opinion on that here.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. Websites come in all shapes and sizes and it’s best to talk to a web designer to work through your business needs and goals. If budget is a driving factor for not having a website, a growth-driven website could be a great option.

So how much does a website cost? Click the button below to learn more!

What will it cost to get you a website?

Should I cut my Marketing Costs?

Posted on by Phil

Marketing is easy to view as an expense, which in turn makes it easy to justify cutting it as a cost. But what is the potential cost of cutting your marketing spend? When times are tough or looking bleak or there’s uncertainty in the air, all too often over the years I have seen people cut costs on marketing. It’s just a number on the PNL (Profit n Loss) sheet, right? Or is it something else entirely?

 

Is Marketing just another expense, or is Marketing an investment?

Marketing clearly comes with a cost. There’s no doubt about that. But is it also an investment? Will it bring more money in than is spent on it? Yes–but only if done properly. It needs to be seen as an investment, and it’s crucial to know that success may take time.

 

The marketing marathon

In the industry, a common phrase is that “marketing is a sprint, not a marathon”. And it’s true. Like in a marathon, the newer and less experienced you are, the longer you have to train and prepare. A brand new start-up with a handful of clients will take longer to see a return with marketing than a business with 30 years in the industry and a loyal client base.

Whether that return is a better business, better team morale, a more engaging place to work etc, the return will have a financial impact on the business itself. And like any investment, it is a long term game.

Cutting marketing during hard times can have the opposite effect, especially if you’re still in the “training” phase. But if you aren’t seeing results, the problem may not be with marketing itself, but may be the type of marketing you’re doing. One of the biggest advantages of Digital Marketing is that it’s easy to measure. You can see how many people visit your website, click on your ads, or fill out a contact form, or buy from your online store. Then, based on those results, you can emphasise what’s working and cut/change what’s not. Over time, as you build followers and gain more trust, you’ll find that you can get better results for your advertising dollar.

 

The Overnight Success lie

Anyone who has studied, worked hard, sacrificed, and started a business from scratch knows the cliche that is dubbed an overnight success. It is simply a fallacy. Besides the extremely rare case, it just doesn’t happen. Anything that will pay dividends in the long term is something that needs some serious dedication and commitment.

For our children to grow up successful, happy and fulfilled, we need to spend time with them when they are young. We need to build a stable foundation for them to become confident human beings. We need to help them understand and grow. Our staff, our team are the same. We have to encourage and invest in them. Even with the knowledge that yes, they may leave one day, it is still a fundamental pillar in which we must TRUST. It is an investment in them as much as it is your business.

And my friend, your marketing is in the same boat!

If you invest in the long-term, you will be rewarded if you keep at it. Just like your staff, who you (hopefully) want to nurture and see them grow, it takes an investment of time, resources, and effort to improve. Ultimately, they’ll get better at their job and become a valuable asset. If you get your team excited about what they do and they perform – because they want to – then this is ultimately going to produce an ROI. If you invest time in marketing (which is not advertising) and focus on the right activities, you will potentially see tremendous returns on the investment in the long run.

 

How do I invest in the right Marketing?

Well, firstly you need to find out what the “right marketing” is for your business. It may be different from others–even ones in the same industry. Ultimately, the right marketing and the right activities are the ones that lead you towards the end goal. So knowing what you want to achieve from your Marketing Strategy is very important too.

In this day and age, marketing is about telling a story, about engaging and attracting the people who believe what you believe. It is about educating them about your industry – especially if they don’t understand it well. The right marketing is about understanding who your customers are and how you can attract them and doing it where they actually hang out. You may instinctively know this or you may need the help of an agency like us, but that is up to you to decide and figure out.

If I was to define what I believe to be the “right marketing’ I would say it is producing helpful, unbiased, relevant content that will educate and inspire your buyers and potential staff alike. It’s about being customer-centric and getting to know and understand the philosophy of Inbound Marketing.

If you aren’t sure what content is, or what type is effective in 2021, take a look at our e-book The Beginner’s Guide to Digital Marketing: What is Content and why do I need it? You can download it by clicking the image below.

The Beginner's Guide to Digital Marketing -- What is Content?

 

What is Inbound Marketing?

This is an article in its own right, but essentially, Inbound Marketing is a philosophy that attracts customers to you. Instead of going out to get customers through extensive advertising, you create content that brings them to you. Inbound helps to educate potential customers about your business and your industry and makes it easier for them to decide they like and more importantly, trust you. And as I mentioned earlier, the ROI for the right activities can be tremendous. I believe the one true currency that really matters when embracing and investing in Inbound is TRUST!

 

TRUST- the one true return on your Inbound investment

We’ve all heard the saying that it can take years to build trust and seconds to destroy it! Of course, your marketing and sales activity needs to be genuine and authentic. You can’t just say what you think people want to hear – that’s still an old school manipulative marketing tactic. Especially when it’s not true!

So if it is an investment to build trust, it makes sense to agree that once you’re trusted and respected, that if you remain genuine, then that status is easier to maintain right? So why after investing so much and gaining all of that momentum would you want to cut it?

Yes, marketing costs money, but Inbound marketing – if you genuinely want to educate and believe in being transparent, can return far more than money.

 

So should you cut costs on your marketing?

It’s easy for me to sit at my computer and type all of this, and for some people, they can’t decide if the chicken or the egg came first so they can’t make the leap of faith. And that’s ok. Although I believe marketing is an investment, it ultimately comes down to what you believe (although if you’re still reading at this point, there’s a fair chance you might agree with me on this one!) But still, it’s every business owner’s right to choose. So whether you should or shouldn’t cut marketing costs, that’s your decision.

However, keep in mind that although marketing has costs associated with it, marketing itself is not actually an expense when done right. In fact, if you’re willing to adopt an Inbound marketing mindset then using the right tools and software, such as Hubspot, the trade-off is that the cost may even provide you with an ROI of the one thing we possibly all value as much as trust… TIME!

It’s true. Inbound Marketing can not only help you gain a financial return if you’re willing to invest but an ROI of Trust and TIME too. Just remember that with Inbound especially, marketing is a marathon that takes time, investment, and resources, but can ultimately be extremely rewarding if you see it through.

If you’ve been considering working with a marketing company, take a look at our article about how to choose the right marketing company for you by clicking the button below.

How to Choose the Right Marketing Agency?

Do I really need a website if I have enough clients?

Posted on by Allison Robinson

Many people think that if they are already busy, having a website won’t be much help. So do you really need a website if you have enough clients?

The short answer is yes, even if your business is happily ticking along, you are busy enough with word of mouth, and things are just plain fine and dandy. Your website is not always for your business but it’s for your customers too. With 70% of the buying decision now being made before a client has already contacted you, and 74% of people say website design affects their trust in a website, people want to be able to research and have their questions answered – and trust your answers are unbiased and accurate.

Take buying a new fridge for example. You can do a Google search from the comfort of your home and find out everything you want to know. You don’t have to go to a shop and be wondering will fit in your space or traipse the town finding parks while contending with bored kids, sideways wind, and salespeople eager to get you to buy something now.

Online, you can browse through all the main retailers to compare prices, specs, and measurements. If all the information you need is online, you just have to pop in and tell the store what you want!

Customers do research ahead of time

Potential customers want to research, research, research. Take a more complex and expensive purchase like renovating your home or building a new house. All those expensive things you just do not want to get wrong. The more expensive something is, the more research you’ll want to do first. You want to be absolutely sure that you have the right product and that you’re getting it from the right company. So if you’re a business owner, how can you make yourself out to be that company?

If you are good at what you do, don’t you owe it to your potential customers to inspire them with work you have completed and make sure they are getting the best people for the job? As someone who prides themselves on doing the right thing does it not grind your gears when you hear horror stories of shortcuts and shoddy workmanship when you know if they had just come to you they could have avoided all that?

This is where your work, your testimonials and reviews come into play. You need a place to house them and a website is perfect for this. Word of mouth is fine for people that are in your circle but there could be good clients out there that simply have not come across you yet.

Fine out about the buyers journey

Weed out bad fits and streamline the contact process

One possibility of having a website that may sound counterintuitive is that some companies end up with fewer people contacting them for a bit. Why would that be? It’s because if you have enough information on your website, customers can decide from there if you’re a good fit. You’ll be less likely to get tyre kickers and more likely to get people who are already interested in what you offer. This can also save you time. You’re less likely to have to put down your tools and stop what you’re doing to answer a call that leads to nothing or to answer a quick question. Instead, if this information is online, you can focus on what you do best– plain old fashioned hard work!

A website can prove you’re the expert

Customers want to know all their options to make the best decision for them. Remember, they don’t hold all the knowledge that you do as an expert in your field. I recently had a friend build a house and when asked about what sort of windows they wanted they just didn’t know what they didn’t know and felt like a deer in headlights. What are the options, what are the colours, styles are there extra things I can add? They didn’t know. If the customers don’t know this information ahead of time, that means more time for the worker to explain the options–or worse, don’t do it at all!

Simplify your processes

Helping your clients understand what you do and what you offer can save you time when it comes to quoting as well. With you providing everything they need to know on a simple, well-designed website, research is enjoyable and gives them time to figure out what they do and don’t like. A website can take away some friction for you quoting as well you can have an informed two-way conversion with the client as to why that may or may not work. You have educated them before bombarding them with industry jargon and on-the-spot decision making.

If there is one thing you don’t want is a house full of windows that just aren’t quite right and Joe down the road has all the bells and whistles that you didn’t even know existed. You owe it to consumers to share what you do and how well you can do it. Sometimes people want to be inspired by work they see online and how they can go about creating this for themselves and sometimes they just want to make sure that your services fit what they are looking for so they are not wasting your time.

Think about last time that you bought something with a difficult buying process that left you feeling in the dark. A website can help make sure you aren’t doing that to your potential customers!

Want to find out more about websites? Click a button below!

What will it cost to get you a website?

Do I need a website if I have Facebook?

How to choose the right marketing agency for your business

Posted on by Phil

Like anything that involves the unknown, and when there are so many options, knowing what to look for to choose the right marketing agency for your business is no different. In this article, we will try and point out some things that may help you get to a decision you’re comfortable with faster.

There a number of ways for Growing Your Business Online That Will Actually Work, And with well over 4 billion internet users today? If digital marketing can help you engage with a fraction of this, it will play a huge role in your company’s growth.

Digital marketing can provide your business with so much potential return, so, why would you ever leave something as big as your company’s success to chance? Or why would you sacrifice your own time to learn (or try to learn) how to do your own marketing? Wouldn’t you be best doing what you do best? That’s probably why you went into business in the first place right?

Knowing how to choose the right marketing partner for your business is not an easy feat. After all, marketing companies are all pretty good at talking – it’s what they do! But finding one that also ‘walks the walk’ can be somewhat difficult. And when the growth of your business depends on finding and working with people you can trust, there’s a few things you can do to make sure you make the right CHOICE.

Choosing a marketing agency

There are plenty of ways of deciding which agency you want to work with:

  • Formal Quote or Proposal
  • Pitch for your business
  • Seeing sample/small projects up front
  • Word of Mouth – Getting a referral
  • Basing your decision on cost

As I alluded to above, Finding an agency is easy. The hard part is finding an agency that is the right fit for your business. I recommend you think about the following things before trying to decide.

Trust

The digital marketing landscape can be a bit of a minefield. It’s continually changing, so it’s natural that plans and tactics will need to change over time. Do you trust your agency to keep up, and keep you informed long the way?

Like any relationship, it won’t always be smooth, and there’s bound to be some turbulence from time to time. It’s really important, essential in fact, that you know you can communicate with your agency freely and address difficult situations. Being open to engagement feedback will help. So ask them what happens when things go wrong. Can you trust them to step up and fix and/or deliver without unexpected invoices coming your way? When deadlines are fast approaching and something’s not right, can you count on honesty, even if what they say is the last thing you want to hear?

Value

When you choose to move forward with an agency, it’s a good idea to ask them for some real-life examples of how they have helped businesses like yours. Do they have case studies available? What are their fields of expertise? Will they deliver you real value?

Transparency

Transparency relates back to trust. Pricing for example–and let’s be honest, no-one likes to talk about money–but if all the cards are on the table from the start, everyone knows where they stand. This includes the agency being upfront about charges and costs and you being upfront about budgets and what you can afford. It’s no secret that some marketing companies will tell you what you want to hear just to win your business. Be wary of this. Starting a relationship on false pretences will more often than not lead to more deception later on. You simply can’t build on a foundation of misrepresented truths.

Choosing an Agency is your decision

Size doesn’t matter

You might not be looking at being the biggest client, or the smallest, but the days of judging companies on the number of desks in their office are gone. Bigger teams don’t guarantee work will be done faster or to a higher quality.
Look into the company’s culture. Does the team communicate well, collaborate with each other internally and externally? And most importantly do they demonstrate an understanding of your vision? Do they get how important what you do is – to you!
Often, (and we hear of this a lot) the people pitching to you won’t be the ones doing the work, so we recommend you find out who will actually be working on your project. In larger agencies, your projects could be handed down to less experienced or junior members. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing–unless they use you as “practice” for the “real clients”. Would you want that?

Are Case Studies Enough?

Before you hire a new employee, you would conduct interviews and check their references. Does the same happen when you engage a marketing agency? Whilst previous work is a good benchmark, it’s not the be-all and end-all. If you’re serious about marketing your business, you should ask to speak with some of your prospective agency’s clients. Then they can tell you themselves what the agency is actually like to work with and how it has helped their business.

Price isn’t everything…

Transparency and trust are key here! It’s true that time and costs can and probably will fluctuate from project to project or campaign to campaign. This can depend on the products and/or services used in each case. The important thing to keep in mind is the open-minded communication mentioned above. If the agency has a good track record of this and the clients they have are seeing good results or ROI, then this is a good indicator – if a campaign costs you $2000, but returns sales of 5X ($10k) then the value should outweigh the price every time.

How are the agency’s own marketing efforts?

Do they market themselves well? Do you find what they do engaging and educational? ‘Practice what you preach’ is essential when it comes to marketing.

Of course, how they promote and advertise their own business should be different from how they market yours. However, if you want to know how to choose the right marketing agency for your business, you will want to know and be comfortable they can do it for themselves.

How to choose the right marketing agency

Any decent marketing person can tell you that running any marketing activity without a plan or clear strategy without some type of optimisation, whether that be SEO, defining a conversion path or CTA (Call to Action) is ultimately going to result in failure. I said it in the into, but it bears repeating, you’re an expert at what you do – that’s why you started your business. The right marketing agency for your business is an expert at taking what you’re great at, helping you develop your ideas, and turn those ideas into action. This will, in turn, help your buyers connect with you and ultimately if everyone plays their role well, will result in reaching your objectives – whatever they may be.

It’s true that marketing has dramatically changed in the last decade and if you want to find an agency or outsourced marketing department that is a good fit for your business, you just need to do your research, consider the options available to you and be comfortable that you choose what you think is the best fit for you! And to help even further (based on Google search and excluding us) here’s an article for the best marketing companies in Southland.

How can automation save you time and money?

Posted on by Phil

When it comes to running a business, there can be a lot of admin that goes along with it. So you may have asked “how much time should I spend on Admin for my business?” It’s a fair question. They say the best way to get something done right is to do it yourself. Really, the best way to get something done is to do it once, then have it automatically repeated the right way. And that’s exactly how automation saves you time–and money.

You may have heard that robots are out to steal your job. And that is a complicated topic with a lot of nuances. However, you might be interested to know that robots–or rather, automated processes–can steal the jobs you don’t want from you right now, opening you up to do more of the things that matter or that you care about doing. By automating repetitive busywork, automation saves you time, and it could be much more than you think!

How does automation work?

Automation isn’t magic. But it might look like it once it starts working! There is complicated automation using API integration, and there’s automation using logic and pre-existing software.

The basic premise behind the latter is that you set up a task once, then set rules for when it’s done. Once you get the hang of automating things, it will take a little bit of setup to get it working right, but then you’ll never have to do it again. There are a lot of different automation softwares out there. Zapier, ManyChat, and HubSpot for instance can all automate different things. While they all have different specifics, automation requires a few basic skills:

Understanding Fields and Variables

Variables are the basis of automation. In order for automation to work, variables have to be defined and then they can be used. If that sounds complicated, fortunately, most of the software does this part for you. For instance, any CRM like HubSpot will have you put in a contact’s first name, email address, and phone number. Each of those items are called fields and are used in your automation.

Here’s a quick real-world example that we use:

Our business is sent dozens of invoices from clients each month. These Invoices all have the same fields, even if they’re a different spot. They’ll have an invoice number, company name, due date, and so on. And we want to keep a record of these in our own accounting system.

With automation, all of those fields can be recognized, and then put in a format that the software can understand. So instead of having to find the invoice number, their name, the due date, and all of that, that information will be picked up instantly and typed in for us. Since we were just going to take the information and type it in manually anyway, having that task be automated saves us a lot of time!

Logic Pathways

The next level of automation is understanding logic pathways. If you can do this, then you can automate a lot more tasks! A logic pathway simply means that one action will happen if a user does one thing, and something else will happen if they don’t. And then you can have a further level beyond that to be as complicated as you can wrap your head around. So how can logic pathways help you?

Here’s a quick real-world example that we use:

We wanted to guide people who showed interest in learning about Content Creation to more resources. But we didn’t want to send everyone the same thing–we wanted to send them items that would be valuable for them. To do that, we used logic pathways.

First, we would send out our eBook, What is Content and why do I need it? If they didn’t open the email, we’d send a reminder in a few days with a link to the download. Then if they downloaded it, we could send them an article about how to make effective Facebook posts. If they never downloaded it, we wouldn’t bother them again–they may be too busy or were just curious.

If someone opened the email and downloaded the eBook right away, we’d send that same Facebook article. But if they also clicked a link that they were interested in talking with us, then a task would be made for us to follow up with them in a few days.

This entire process is automated. So instead of checking manually and calling someone who might not want to be bothered, everything is done automatically. And relevant tasks for follow-ups are only made when they’re needed!

Testing and retesting!

Automation is a fantastic helper–when it works properly. When it doesn’t–and you think it is–it can hurt more than help. That’s why testing is super important. This is especially crucial with more complex automation. We’ve been doing automation for awhile, so some of the tasks can be quite complex. Take a look at this one we’ve done for Facebook Messenger:

Facebook Messenger Automation

There were a lot of branching pathways to deal with, and if one of those in the middle didn’t work, no one would ever get to the end goal! So each of those pathways were checked, then double-checked to make sure they worked properly. Some errors were caught and fixed, then they were double-checked again.

That’s why it’s important to thoroughly test any automated tasks before relying on them. Sure, it takes time, but the time and headaches saved is worth it. Even with all of the testing, automation saves you time–especially when it’s something that you would normally do dozens or even hundreds of times a month!

Automation seems complex, how do I start?

You don’t need to start by building a multi-level pathway with dozens of steps. Start with something simple, then move on to more complex tasks.

For instance, say you want to make sure you get back to everyone who fills out a contact form on your website. You probably already get an email that you have a new submission. But you can also make it so that you get a calendar alert, a text, or a pop-up notification an hour after the submission. Then once you get the hang of it, you can move on to more complex tasks. Eventually, you’ll open up a lot of free time for other things–like things that make money!

Of course, not all tasks can or should be automated.

What tasks shouldn’t be automated?

While many repetitive tasks can be automated, there are some that still need a personal touch. Reaching out to customers is one of them. This isn’t to say that you don’t do marketing emails; far from it. But automation can go too far. Consider a scenario when you haven’t reached out to a client in 3 months and wanted to check-in with a phone call.

Automated check-in — Robocall

Hello… Barry. Our records indicate that we haven’t spoken in…. 3 months. How is everything with… Frydays Chip Shop? Please call us if there’s anything to do to help. Thank you.

Personalised check-in — Personal phone call

Hi Barry, I stopped by for some of your amazing chips this week and got to thinking, we’ve got that big race coming up next month and people from all over will be wanting some chips. I thought if we did a special campaign on Facebook we could let these people from out-of-town know that you’re the best around. I thought of a fun campaign, “Make any day a Fryday”? What do you think?

Good tasks to start automating

One of the best places to start with trying out automation is with emails. Most email clients like Gmail and Outlook have rules that can automate what to do with certain emails. For instance, if an email gets through your spam filter for “US Concealed Carry Permit” and you don’t live in the States, you can make a rule to always spam emails from that user. But some spammers are also tricky and use dozens of emails. So the next level would be to automatically Spam emails with “US Concealed Carry Permit” in the subject. You can find out more about specifics for Outlook or Gmail. From there, look into anything that is repetitive and start automating away!

Automation saves you time, money, and resources. Find out more about how we can help you with automation on our marketing automation page or get in touch today.