So, you quit the day job to get a better work-life balance, and now you’re running your own business from home. How’s it going? Are you getting enough work? Do your customers like your products and services? Are you reaching them effectively? The marketplace has changed so much because of technology and the way companies connect with their clients mainly because of the digital revolution. So how well connected is your business? Here are some things you should be doing to get digital.
Don’t be afraid
The pace of change in technology can be quite daunting. With new apps and platforms coming online all the time, it can be difficult to keep up. But when it comes to running a successful small business, you need to embrace digital technology. Stripped down to the bare basics, having a website and social media profiles for your venture could mean the difference between make or break.
Very few organizations will turn their back on the digital world because they know it’s a great way to reach out to potential clients and to develop relationships with existing customers. Furthermore, it can open-up what was traditionally a local or national marketplace, into an international one. The potential reach and impact can be substantial.
Define your brand
Before you go digital, you need to make sure that you have a well-defined brand image for your company. Do you have a logo? Do you have company colors? How are you presenting it all? It’s important that you develop an identity that is consistent and tells your company’s story and connects with your market. It then needs to be represented in all your social media activity. The hope will be that it becomes a recognizable brand, one which your customers remember, trust and return to, time and time again.
Your brand also needs to be reflected in any e-marketing and advertising that you may launch to promote products and services. If you’re uneasy about doing it all yourself, then think about hiring some external experts to help. Have a look around at Tampa advertising agencies.
Kick off with a website
Think of your company website as your shop window. It needs to look great, and it needs to encourage browsers to go deeper, to look inside and ultimately buy your products and services. With this in mind, when you get a website developed, it needs to look fantastic and connect with your target market.
If you’re not an internet whizz and lack the technical skills to design a site, then try and earmark some budget to spend on an external consultant to make it happen. They can work closely with you to come up with the online brand image you desire and incorporate all sorts of interactive features.
Your website needs to tell your company story and sell your products and services in a clear and compelling way. Try to avoid loads of text, instead opting for more visual elements, like photographs and video, and make it easy to navigate, with browsers able to look around on a seamless journey.
Your site should inspire your potential customers, maintain their interest and make them want to buy into whatever it is you are selling. If you’re selling goods and products directly through your website, then you need to make it as simple as possible for customers to make purchases, as well as giving them the financial protections that are required.
Your SEO friend
When you have your website designed, and it’s almost ready to go live, you need to be thinking about search engine optimization. It may sound dull and complicated, but SEO is actually really important. If you don’t give your site the treatment, it will struggle to raise its head above the crowd on the bustling internet.
The search engines need to find keywords on your website that your potential customers are tapping in. If the robots find these, then your site will boost its chances of appearing in organic listings, and they’re the ones you don’t have to spend any money on. There’s no point in having a great looking website if nobody can find it!
Harness social media
Having a great-looking website is not enough if you want to maximize your chances of getting sales for your small business. You also need to get social on social media, and that doesn’t just mean on your personal accounts. You also need to have some strong profiles for your business across all the key platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and the like.
Social media is a great way to connect with potential customers and cement relationships with existing clients. It’s a bridge between the two, offering a much more personalized approach, which can help bring in sales.
Therefore, you need to set up some business profiles and regularly post on them. It could be anything from new products and services, to an insight into the workings of your company. It could be a testimonial or some words of wisdom on a relevant topic.
Building interest, followers, and likes will help also build your potential client base. You should take social media seriously. Link it up to your website, so that your feeds automatically update on the home page, for instance.
It’s also worth trying to post some video and photos to invoke interest. How about trying out blog-writing? It’s also a good way to attract attention to you and your company. You should aim to post on a regular basis, to keep up the momentum and interest. You can also link your blog up with any social media campaigns. Have a think about swapping your blog posts with other too, which could help gain even more traction.
Care for your customers
Technology may be taking over the running of businesses like yours, but it doesn’t mean you should lose sight of good old-fashioned customer service. You need to keep your clients happy. So, interact with them on social media, make the ordering and delivery of goods via your website as easy as possible, and make it simple to contact you. Good customer service still goes a long way!
