Growing Pains, Growth Solutions

One of the most important things for a growing business is to capitalize on every potential sales opportunity. That’s why it’s essential to make sure you’re creating a seamless experience for your customers and meeting them where they are.

As a startup business, you may be selling to customers at markets, pop-ups and other in-person events, but do you have the tools to maximize your sales in each place?

Making sure that you’re setting up your business to accept payments across different situations and channels is key to ensuring you don’t miss a sale. A lot of startup businesses are cash-only, for example, but can you really count on your potential customers to carry cash?

Solution: Accepting a variety of payment options, including Interac Debit and Interac e-Transfer

Different customers prefer different payment methods, so accepting a variety of payment options allows you to cater to more people and capture more potential sales, no matter how a customer wants to pay.

Did you know nearly two thirds of Gen Z adults Interac surveyed have loaded their Interac Debit card on their phone?

To start accepting Interac Debit, connect with an acquirer. Find an acquirer here.

If you’re at pop-ups, events and other places where you don’t have access to a traditional point-of-sale machine, you can use Tap to Pay on iPhone or Tap to Pay on Android to accept contactless payments directly on your phone – whether your customer is carrying a physical card or using a digital wallet. These secure, easy-to-set-up solutions allow you to accept contactless payments in more places, without having to invest in additional hardware.

Another benefit? Interac Debit payments are economical and low cost compared to most other payment methods. That means more money for you to invest back into your business.

Also keep in mind that you can accept Interac e-Transfer to collect payments from customers. It’s a simple and easy way for them to pay — not to mention a familiar one for most Canadians. In 2022, we found 47 per cent of Canadians we polled had already used Interac e-Transfer to pay a business.

When you’re starting out, it’s easy to overlook the time you spend on old-fashioned manual processes, like counting cash from a day of selling at a market or manually reconciling cheque-based payments when you do your bookkeeping. But even as you’re fortunate enough to scale up, these tasks will eat up more and more time — cutting into your efficiency and taking up time you could be using doing something more rewarding.

Solution: Adopting time-saving digital tools

Building your business operations around digital transactions will help reduce the time you spend on back-office housekeeping functions. With Interac Debit and Interac e-Transfer, funds move from account to account in near real-time, without the need to deal with piles of paper.

As well, with Interac e-Transfer, you can save yourself a step by enabling the Interac e-Transfer Autodeposit feature, which is available through most larger Canadian financial institutions. When you have the Autodeposit feature enabled, money that you receive via Interac e-Transfer will be deposited into your bank account following  routine fraud checks by your financial institution, without the need for you to set up a security question and answer for each customer — that’s a real efficiency when you’ve got multiple payments rolling in.

For a growing business, it’s important to be certain about your revenue, expenses and profits. Ideally, you should be gathering this information on a monthly, quarterly and yearly basis. Having this data will help you figure out how to respond to changes in your situation or in the marketplace.

Solution: Consider using Interac e-Transfer for Business

Because it creates a digital record of every transaction, using Interac e-Transfer will help you keep track of your evolving financial picture. And for businesses already on a steady growth trajectory, you can use Interac e-Transfer for Business if available through your participating financial institution. The rich remittance data feature can help you reconcile transactions with less reliance on paperwork to streamline your records and also to gather and analyze data that could help you get a deeper picture of your business as you make strategic decisions toward your growth.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools can help you research keywords and create content that will help you rank higher on search engines. You can leverage tools such as Semrush, Google Keyword Planner, Moz or Ahrefs to help you get started.

This is a free tool that allows you to manage your online presence across Google sites and services (notably including Google Search and Maps) by updating your business information, responding to reviews, and posting updates. Doing this regularly could help ensure your business is discoverable to potential customers.

Google Analytics provides in-depth insights into website traffic and user behavior, helping businesses understand their audience and optimize their marketing strategies. Google Trends shows the popularity of search terms over time, helping businesses identify trending topics for content creation and marketing campaigns.

Social media management platforms enable you to schedule posts, engage with your audience, and analyze your social media performance across multiple platforms. This will help you save time and streamline your social media marketing efforts. Think of it as your social media dashboard. Some of the tools you can leverage include Sprout Social, Buffer, Hootsuite or Oktopost.

Email marketing tools are a great way to stay in touch with your growing customer base. They can help you create contact lists so you can let your regulars know about what you’re up to, as well as giving them an early heads up about sales or special discounts. Small businesses can use these tools to help engage with customers through targeted email campaigns and track how well they’re doing. Email marketing solutions to consider include Mailchimp, HubSpot or Brevo. Don’t forget to consider anti-spam rules whenever sending out marketing emails.

Online design tools can give you templates and drag-and-drop features for creating various forms of visual content. It can be useful in creating social media posts, infographics, presentations, flyers and other marketing materials. Some examples are Canva and Piktochart.

If you’re looking for more editing options, including touch ups and other enhancements, you can leverage photo editing tools. Some examples are Photopea, Pixlr and Snapseed.

Machine learning-based tools — commonly referred to as “artificial intelligence” or AI — are an emerging option for free or affordable content creation. You can use AI to brainstorm ideas to promote your fledgling business and can help you write outlines for social media posts, website copy and marketing materials. With a little research and practice, you can also use generative AI to create eye-catching graphics and marketing materials while saving on design costs. Some solutions to try include Midjourney, ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot.