Who wants to free up time and energy to focus on higher-priority tasks? Everyone, right?!
What could you get done if you were able to free up a few extra hours every week? Get ready to put those projects on your to-do list, once you automate the following five tasks:
1. Consolidate web logins
If you aren’t already using a password manager like Lastpass or 1Password, let April Glaser of Wired magazine convince you of their importance:
“Password managers aren’t just for convenience’s sake; think of it as good online hygiene,” she writes. “Most password managers save and generate secure passwords for you, meaning you only have to remember one password—the one that opens your vault.”
Password managers save you time and protect your digital presence, making them a win-win for small business owners.
2. Put invoicing on autopilot
While it’s tough to fully automate your company’s bookkeeping needs, you can still put many of them on autopilot using tools like FreshBooks. Once installed, you can set both invoices and payment reminders to be delivered automatically, allowing you to spend less time on accounting and more time doing what you love.
FreshBooks mobile gives you the freedom to invoice anywhere. For an even more hands-off approach, pair FreshBooks with a service like Bench.co. Not only will you free up the time you’d otherwise spend updating your books, you’ll gain the assurance that your financial needs are being handled by the pros.
3. Set up a system for self-employment tax filings
On the other hand, if you’re a solo worker, you don’t have to worry about payroll taxes and other employer requirements—but if you’re U.S.-based, you will be on the hook for self-employment taxes.
Self-employment taxes are typically filed on a quarterly basis, and it’s up to entrepreneurs to save the required amount and make payments on their own. That is, unless they use a service like Painless1099, which automatically pulls a preset percentage out of each incoming client payment to be set aside for tax purposes.
4. Personalize your email marketing
If you aren’t currently sending automated, trigger- or timing-based email messages to your customers, you’re missing out. While it’s widely acknowledged that email marketing can boast a 3,800 percent ROI, “automated email messages average 70.5 percent higher open rates and 152 percent higher click-through rates than ‘business as usual’ marketing messages.”
Email marketing services like Vero, Drip, ConvertKit, Mailchimp, Aweber, InfusionSoft, and Ontraport can help get you started with everything from automated launch sequences, to post-purchase follow-up, to abandoned cart recovery and more.
As AI continues to advance, automated customer service programs are becoming more and more common.
5. Supercharge your social media marketing
Social media marketing is another area that’s seen a tremendous amount of growth in terms of automation. While tools that can automatically load updates to your social profiles (like Buffer) have been around for a while, new entries to the field can help you:
- Automatically recycle your older blog content for republication (MeetEdgar)
- Receive recommended social updates, based on the topics you choose (Quuu)
- Get notified automatically whenever your paid social media campaigns are losing money (Reveal)
- Automatically aggregate user-generated content to push through to your social profiles (Waaffle)
- Create custom social media graphics using templates and stock photos (Designfeed)
Essentially, with social media marketing, if there’s a function you’d like to automate, there’s likely an app for that.
How are you using automation to free up your time and energy so you can focus on what matters most?
This guest post was originally published on the FreshBooks blog and has been revised for Ideas by We. FreshBooks makes invoicing and accounting painless for millions of small business owners.
