With price being a vital aspect of marketing, a time-tracking tool gives you a full picture of what’s involved in the pricing of your goods or services.
The most valuable resource any business has can’t be seen or held. It doesn’t sit on a desk, hang on a wall or sit in a warehouse.
It’s a resource we chew through every minute of your working day, yet how it is used or how efficiently it runs is often unmeasured.
It’s time.
Staff time is a major expense for most businesses and tracking, assessing and analysing time can lead to huge increases in efficiency and cost-savings, supporting your marketing efforts.
It can even help you better understand the workings of your business – including your products and services.
That’s why so many businesses, including us here at Assemblo, have adopted time-tracking tools into their work.
What are time-tracking tools?
Time-tracking tools are software apps that allow businesses to record time spent on specific tasks or projects.
They’ve been used for years by freelancers working with multiple clients, and in industries that invoice for billable hours, like lawyers and accountants.
Now though, businesses are discovering that the benefits of using time tracking software go way beyond billing.
For example, Harvest, a popular time-tracking app, can help your business better manage project development, plan human resources, and discover better workflow efficiencies – ultimately saving your business money.
How does a time-tracking tool help you better understand your product or service?
Time-tracking tools provide more information than how time is being spent – they give you a fuller picture of just what is involved in the production of your goods, or the services you provide.
It provides insights into how your business and the individuals within it are performing. They show you areas employees are excelling and where there are inefficiencies or roadblocks.
These insights can help you make sure your team is performing to its maximum potential. Time-tracking tools can also reveal organisational issues, and help you to better manage scheduling, time off, approvals, invoicing, and expenses.
The importance of knowing your price
Pricing is a key element of the seven Ps of marketing, and an important factor in determining the price you set is equivalent to how much it costs to produce.
There are obvious costs to producing your product or delivering your service, including materials, equipment and delivery, and marketing, but what about the time employees spend delivering a service (including all the background preparation)?
When you track the time spent on producing your products, you get a more accurate picture of the actual costs and how much should be charged.
In competitive industries, time-tracking tools are particularly important marketing tools because they can identify areas where efficiencies can be made, therefore allowing you to reduce the price and be more competitive.
How time tracking can be easily integrated into your business
The last thing you want is a time-tracking tool that chews up more time in setting up and ongoing maintenance, so it’s important to choose the best app for your business or industry.
One of the key things to look for is ease of use, and the best way to discover this is by checking out reviews.
Look for other features including automated reminders and prompts, ability to access remotely, and what reporting features the tool offers.
At Assemblo we use Harvest, which is super simple to use. It also has a great iPhone app which allows you to track time on the go and is particularly useful if you’re working out in the field and not always in front of a computer.
Harvest also integrates straight into Asana, the tool we use for our internal project management, helping us to further our efficiencies.
If you’re interested in trying Harvest, feel free to use our referral link here. It will give you $10 of credit when you sign up – and full disclosure: we get $10 credit too, so thanks for your support!
Speak to the marketing strategy experts
An effective, high-functioning marketing strategy is one that fully takes in the seven Ps of marketing, and that includes pricing.
Assemblo is a full-service marketing agency based in Melbourne, that lives and breathes the seven Ps of marketing, and we can develop a marking strategy that will help your business grow its brand and achieve real bottom line results.
To find out how we can help your business, give us a call on (03) 9079 2555 or send us a note via the contact form below.