News Flash: COVID-19 has ruined everything. It also has a lot of unexpected consequences, which have outpaced the normal order of things. Zoom video chats are set up by grandmothers. You can watch big-budget movies on your TV. Knitting is cool. A raccoon will approve you for a mortgage.
What is another surprising consequence of COVID-19
Online business is becoming more popular.
As you probably know, we do more online than we did a decade ago, a year ago, a month ago, or ten seconds ago. This is especially true when digitizing businesses. Online branding, commerce, and advertising are all on the rise. Surprisingly, not everyone has joined the digital revolution.
What does this mean for you if your goal is to digitize your company? Let’s get into it…
It was discovered that 46% of small businesses didn’t have any web presence. COVID-19 has boosted internet use by 70%. We hope this is not the case! The Coronavirus wiped out 95% of online purchases. This timeframe for SME (small to medium-size enterprise) digitization likely has shrunk a lot.
The digital divide between businesses that are online and offline businesses has been widened by the pandemic. This is not as pleasant a result as the increase in knitted dog sweaters but it’s still something to be aware of. It also means that SME digitization has never been more important.
Every business must go online in the near future or risk being left behind. Those who are slow to respond and still rely on traditional business models like brick and mortar will struggle to survive, while those who cater to internet customers will enjoy greater success.
This is the new normal, just like grandma being more knowledgeable about Facetime than you are.
The question is, then, how can you position your company for success?
Our advice: Digitize your business. Today.
Why digitize your business?
These are just a few of the reasons.
Everybody will be online sooner than later
It is important to keep in touch with customers
It is important to continue generating revenue
Market share is something you don’t want to lose to your competitors
Here are the top ways to make sure your business is digitally fast.
Step 1: Go Online
We are willing to wager that you have used a screen in the past. This is probably the first time you’re reading it on a screen. This means that you are online, surprise!
You’re not the only one doing this. It’s the same for every man, woman and child. Even the cat can order Petco from Instacart.
This is a fake photo. No one uses an iPhone 4 anymore
What is the primary purpose of running a business?
Be there for your customers
Customers and their pets are online. The first step in reaching your customers is to go online and create an online presence. Once you have established an online presence, engage them online. You can see a pattern emerging here. It’s crucial to understand that your website is not a mere placeholder or afterthought for your digital presence. Your brand’s website must be a complete digital marketing hub.
Step 2: Create a website (and sell through it)
Any digitally-integrated business needs a branded website as its heartbeat. Every other online activity funnels to your website which, in turn, funnels traffic to paying customers both online and off.
These are just a few of many amazing things that a website can accomplish:
Give your business credibility
Act as your directory listing, especially for local businesses
Offer a way to generate leads
Directly generate sales & revenue
Offer a way to collect data and track KPIs
Outperform competitors
Facilitate webrooming
Create a brand identity to increase customer loyalty
Get organic traffic for “brand”, “navigational”, and other search queries
Have you ever heard of webrooming?
Webrooming allows consumers to research products online before purchasing them in a brick-and-mortar shop. Think of visiting a showroom only online.
It’s the hottest thing in the biz.
Websites are essential for even the most localized, physically-based businesses on the planet. More than 80% of shoppers research online before visiting a store. Your business won’t be able to showcase (or webcasing) its products or services online if it isn’t online. It’s that simple.
Online sites can increase your offline profits. This is just math.
Your website doesn’t need to be the next Amazon. Sometimes a simple one-pager is enough. It is important to create the pages you need to help others.
Your SEO should be improved
Generate leads
Register your offerings
Give contact information
Once you have covered these, you can start to build an eCommerce platform and allow customers to make transactions right from your website. You can enrich the user experience with structured data such as Product schema.
Remember, no matter how many pages you have, your website must look great and perform well.
Step 3: Create social profiles (and sell through them)
It is not easy to transition online. It can also be costly.
Even if you don’t have the funds right away to build the best website in the world, there is no reason you shouldn’t be able to create the most popular social media platform. You can digitize your business using social strategies if you do it right.
It’s also how Poo-Pourri and the Arab Spring got their start. Social media is great enough for the Biebs.
The best part is that creating a social media profile is completely free. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as LinkedIn, YouTube, and YouTube, are all available to you. Except for Google+. This button is no longer available. Please remove any Google+ buttons that you have on your website. If you have a MySpace link on your website, please call us immediately.
What a wonderful way to use social media to digitize your business!
Some social media platforms can be used as eCommerce platforms.
Instagram, for example, has a checkout feature that allows users to make purchases from within the app. Instagram Shopping allows brands to add tags to posts linking to their product pages. (See! This website is already very useful.
Even if your site isn’t equipped with eCommerce, social media can help you generate sales. All you need to create a winning strategy is creativity and some time.
You say, “What’s that?” Twittering is not something you can do all the time. We get it. You are really busy.
You don’t have to spend too much on social media, or your budget.
We recommend that you avoid it.
We see too many businesses trying to keep up with the latest online trends through a multitude of social media accounts. It is better to concentrate on just a few social media channels and do it well.
Are you unsure where to begin? Do you tweet, gram? post, tumble, or tok?
Facebook and Instagram are top choices due to their integration with online advertising and commerce activity. Add LinkedIn to your list of B2B companies. Video is a great way to amplify your digital strategy. It can easily be shared across all of your social media accounts and it often produces the highest ROI.
You now have a strong online presence. Let’s now share it with everyone.
Step 4: Start Your Business
We don’t mean to do a Google search for your company.
This means creating, updating, optimizing, and optimizing Google My Business accounts for selling. You can also do the same with Bing Places. Wordstream estimates that nearly half of Americans use Bing. Crazy, right?) Understanding the importance of these platforms for small businesses is crucial to long-term SME digitization.
A well-rounded Google My Business account can be a great asset for local businesses. However, it is equally important for non-localized brands.
Google My Business helps you:
Your Knowledge Panel can be branded (aka Google’s sidebar).
Qualify to Get Local Results
Get leads by generating clickable phone numbers and contact information
Upload photos, updates, and offers
Manage your online reputation
Get reviews to boost your appeal
Customer queries can be answered directly
Google My Business is a free way to advertise on Google.
It is also a first contact point for your customers with your company.
GMB offers many great ways to convert your customers. Its posting feature is one of the most useful and underrated features. It allows you to share announcements, products, offers, and news directly on SERP using calls-to-action and retargeting.
Google My Business is another important component of SEO.
This leads us to…
Step 5: Use SEO to drive sales
Although SEO optimization is often viewed as a way to increase site traffic, it can also be a great way to drive sales, especially for SME digitization. Have your doubts? Take a look at this:
Search accounts for 39% of all global e-commerce traffic
Organic traffic generates over 40% of the revenue
Search engines account for 53% of all internet traffic
This is just the tip of the digital iceberg.
The top benefits of SEO were previously discussed. We found that organic traffic has a greater ROI than any other source of traffic. Optimizing your website and online content is key to profitable SEO. This will help you attract high-quality traffic. This can be achieved by targeting sales-friendly keywords and writing with conversions as your goal.
That’s the end of it. There are many aspects to SEO, including site structure, speed optimization, content, backlinking and competitive analysis. When all of these elements are put together properly, they can help you increase your online visibility, traffic, sales, and conversions.
The battle to digitize your business is not over just getting online. Making sure that your customers find you is the second half of digitizing business. SEO is also a key component of …..
Step 6: Paid online advertising
So you have now set up your website, sent out tweets, and possibly even found yourself in a Google Search.
HIGH FIVE
Your business has been officially digitized
We’re still not done.
The competition will tighten as more businesses go online to do business. How can one be different from the rest? These platforms allow you to digitize your business.
Digital advertising is the best place for you to start.
You can generate consistent sales online with digital advertising using such channels as:
Paid Search Ads aka SEM (e.g. Google AdWords
Paid social ads (e.g. Facebook and Instagram Ads
Here are some examples of how you can best use the most popular online advertising platforms in your sales funnel.
Google Ads: For targeting people with strong purchase intentions
Facebook Ads: For generating leads and building brand awareness
LinkedIn Ads: For selling B2B products or services
Instagram ads: For targeting younger audiences with visually powerful products
Different platforms can also be used to target different demographics. Pinterest Ads, for example, are more effective at targeting women than men because over 70% of Pinterest users are female. LinkedIn ads can be used to target higher-income users since 75% of users earn $50,000/year or more.
Advertising on Amazon is another option.
Amazon Marketing is a great way to market if you have a product people can purchase online. This is it.
Amazon Ads offers direct access to all stages of the sales funnel, from research to purchase. Your audience will likely use Amazon already so why not connect with them? Do you want to digitize your business so that it can sell online? Amazon advertising can help you improve your eCommerce.
This is just a small part of the many things you should be thinking about.
It’s not something we can sugarcoat. It’s not easy to increase your online reach through digital advertising. It takes time to learn how to choose the right ad type, track the conversions, target the right audiences, set up remarketing, and more. If you don’t have a solid paid media strategy, it can be costly.
However, all that hard work has huge rewards.
This is the essence of digitization.
Step 7: Get it all into action in the new normal
To position your company for success in COVID-19 (and beyond), you need to adopt an omnichannel approach that uses the digital methods described above. This hard truth is quickly becoming a reality in many industries.
This is an example:
Restaurant Industry: Using online ordering and delivery services such as GrubHub or Postmates, and promoting these services online (that’s quite a bit of digitization), restaurants have found innovative ways to reach people who are hungry.
Hotels and airlines are creating new channels of customer service online by updating customers via social media and adding relevant portals to their websites.
Rainbow Tours is an excellent example of how travel-based companies can use the digital landscape creatively to continue providing their services. We don’t have to travel just because we aren’t allowed to go home for quarantine.
The Museum and Zoo Industry: Using digital technology to transform in-person experiences into digital ones. You can take a virtual tour of the Louvre, or see adorable animals at the San Diego Zoo via live cameras. There are never shorter lines to see Mona Lisa or monkeys.
Farm Industry: Salmonberry Goods helps local farms sell products to consumers who purchase their Farm Box online. Anyone can digitize if farmers can.
These industries are examples of those that do business offline but now rely on the internet to survive. Although not all online efforts result in direct sales, SME digitization can help them build brand awareness, engagement, and loyalty.
These industries are those you would think would be most affected by the Coronavirus pandemic. They are able to survive and thrive because of their success with digitization.
Internet, thank you!
Is there anything you can’t accomplish?
