How to save the most time in your business?
Easy… with automation!
You may not even think about these things… but if you automate them, you won’t have to deal with them next time!
Great, right?
Of course, it is usually necessary to invest some time and work first, but most of the time it pays off very well!
Here are some ideas of what you can optimize in your business and save a lot of time and energy. And even better… an individual task will probably take you only a few minutes:
Marketing Tasks
Planning posts for social media (like Instagram, Facebook)
Many people might think: “this is not a lot of work”. In reality, however, there is quite a bit of work… collecting ideas, planning, writing, and creating content for social media can be time-consuming! And instead of writing content on a daily basis, I recommend that you prepare it in one go for a month or week ahead. Every day you save a lot of time to only get in writing flow. And even better on those busy days.
So how to start?
Take a calendar and plan content for the week or month. I usually make a plan for the coming week. Then write all copies, add photos/videos, and set the posts to be published automatically (“Schedule”).
Tools I use:
- Facebook Creator Studio for Facebook posts,
- Planoly and Later for Instagram posts.
Reposting content
Once you’ve created the content, it’s nice to use it again and again. Maybe you can also post a post from Instagram on Facebook, or you can promote a blog post again on social media in a month.
This way you can save a lot of time: instead of preparing new content over and over again. But if preparing content is a real pleasure for you, then this is just bonus content you can share!
Both readers and you will be very pleased! 😉
Tools I use:
- For the blog post, I use the template “Don’t let existing content to be forgotten”,
- Facebook Creator Studio for posts on Facebook,
- Zapier for posts from Instagram to Facebook,
- dlvr.it (dlvrit.com) for posts from Facebook to Google Business.
Automatic sequence of emails for new subscribers or projects
You probably already know this… share email and get a freebie in return (video/pdf/…) !?
However, you can go a step further and automate the next few emails, which will encourage and inspire the subscribers.
Eg. additional tips or a great offer/discount, maybe even an additional freebie…
Tools I use:
- Mailchimp for sending news and automating a sequence,
- for sharing a freebie you can use Dropbox, Drive, website, YouTube, Vimeo.
Automated Analytics Reports
Instead of monitoring statistics and searching for the right data, you can create reports and schedule them for weekly or monthly reports. This way you can quickly gain key information and save time by searching for data.
Tools I use:
- Google Analytics.
Creating a Content Library
This may not necessarily be automation, but it is a system that can save you a lot of time. You can create different libraries (depending on what you use and what is useful for you): e.g. content ideas for a blog, social media, hashtags, replies to emails/comments/messages…
In short, content that you use often and keep looking for – keep it in one place. The next time you need hashtags for an Instagram post, you can find them in your library. Or you get a frequently asked question in the mail – you can just copy the answer from your library!
Can you imagine how much time you can save?!
Tools I use:
- Notes (part of Apple OS),
- Planoly and Later for hashtags, email
- Airmail 3, Asana – for email templates,
- Asana and Google Docs for content – social media and blog.
Customer Support Related Tasks
Autoresponder
This can be an autoresponder when you are on vacation or when someone buys your product, register for your workshop…
These are for example. emails that the user receives when submitting the contact form (for purchase in the online store, reservation, inquiry…) and also emails, part of the online store (eg when placing an order, sending, completing an order).
This can save you a huge amount of time as you don’t have to reply and send important information over and over again.
Tools I use:
- Airmail 3 – my general e-mail app,
- website – forms for various contacts, online store.
Replay templates for e-mail, messages, social media, DM
If you often get similar questions, it makes sense to make a template with answers. So when you get a question, you can just copy the answer, edit if needed and send it. An insanely big time saver, especially if you have a lot of questions. Why would you write an answer from scratch every time?!
Tools I use:
- Airmail 3,
- Asana – for templates for all other channels except email.
Automatic invoices in the online shop
If you have an online shop, it is useful to make sure that invoices (also in pdf format) are generated automatically. This means that you don’t need to create a new invoice for each order, but this happens automatically.
Tools I use:
- online store in WordPress (WooCommerce) with an add-on for pdf invoices.
Frequently Asked Questions – FAQ
The FAQ section can be super useful for all potential customers, as they can quickly get answers and make an easier and more informed purchase decision.
FAQ is not necessarily just a part of the website, you can also include them in the automatic e-mail response, in the offer, on social media… Depending on what is most useful for you and your business.
Tools I use:
- website,
- Google Docs (for creating offers).
Administrative tasks
Automatic backups for documents and websites
It is always smart to do a regular backup. Now, we can take advantage of cloud services and store all important documents there. They are then available from different locations and at the same time a backup (additional if you have several computers where data is synchronized).
And don’t forget to back up your website. Although I always recommend manual backups (especially in case of updates or major edits on a website), there is nothing wrong with additional automatic backups (these should be stored in a location other than the website).
Tools I use:
- Google Drive, Dropbox, My Cloud for documents and my work files,
- Updraft plugin and Dropbox for the website.
Sharing the calendar between co-workers, customers
You can share your calendar with customers and co-workers and avoid coordinating appointments for a meeting! Of course, this isn’t necessarily your most personal calendar, if you have a calendar you can share, then share it.
Tools I use:
- Google Calendar for internal use,
- Calendly for customer meetings.
Inbox cleaning
You know this moment when your inbox is full of emails you don’t even like? Cleaning this can be quite time consuming. So do this regularly and also subscribe to the newsletter only if you are interested.
Tools I use:
- Unroll.me to clean and unsubscribe.
Automatic reminders for regular, repetitive tasks
If you have frequent: e.g. weekly tasks that are repeated every week, you can automate this with reminders that remind you each week what you have to do. If any information is needed for an additional task – e.g. if you need to enter data in a specific table, save a link to that table in the reminder, this means saving time searching for the table each time.
Tools I use:
- Asana to manage all tasks and projects.
E-mail signatures
If you do not have a signature in your email yet and you are typing a new signature for each email this can be very time-consuming + not consistent. So it’s useful to prepare your signatures.
Eg. If you are communicating in different languages, you can have signatures for each language.
Tools I use:
- Airmail 3.
Here you have a few ideas on how to optimize, automate your business and save time! Of course, not everything can be optimized, but why not optimize at least what you can, right?!?
Don’t make the work harder than it really is! Simplify what you can and enjoy.
If you want to optimize your business, you can find fev templates that I have prepared for you on the Portal here. But if you want me to help you optimize your business 1:1, send me an email to [email protected]
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