We’re rapidly approaching the silly season, often a quiet period for many businesses. Clients may travel, take time off during the school holiday period, or just take a well-earned break as another year draws to a close.
However, this time of year also presents a great opportunity to look at aspects of your business that might not get much attention when you’re busy with client work.
One area worth looking at is any system subscriptions or paid content you might have signed up for- you may be surprised what can potentially be saved each month by doing so.
CRM, research, email marketing, even Microsoft Office are generally subscription based now, meaning they have a monthly or yearly fee. News and education sites may also charge for content. The content owners or software companies provide automatic payment plans, so there’s no need to manually pay a bill. While this is good in some ways (one less job to do every month) you could also be paying for a low-priority service, simply because it’s happening without any action on your part.
Consider what you’re paying for:
Do you use that subscription to the New York Times?
How often do you send out email campaigns through that marketing mail out site that costs $10 a month?
It might not seem like a lot of money when you look at it on a monthly basis – but if there’s five or six subscriptions you’re paying for, at $20 or more per service per month, it adds up to a significant cost over an entire year.
Another thing to consider is whether the systems you’re paying for can cover more than one activity. Instead of paying $20 a month for CRM and $10 for a mailout service, does your CRM have the facility built in? Was it all too difficult to bring them across when you implemented, so you kept the two systems running parallel just to get on with the job?
While many are winding down, the December-January period can be a great time to sit down, look at the services you’re using and ensure you’re getting the best possible outcome for time and money spent. Once you make sure you’re not paying real dollars for subscriptions, you could be surprised at the savings – and who doesn’t love a bit of extra spending money for the festive season?