Why Digitally Transforming Your Business Will Help You In The Long-Run

 

 

Think about it, how many businesses have you visited in the last month without looking them up on a Google Search first? If you’ve visited more than 5 of them, you’re clearly a regular at those stores. What about others who aren’t regulars? They would likely do a Google search on their phones looking for information on those businesses whether they’re looking for location information or wanting to purchase something from you. If those businesses have a Google listing, fantastic! They probably just gained a customer. If they aren’t, well, they’re SOL. They lost a customer.

Customers that do a Google search for local businesses have an intent to visit them in store or visit their website to learn more about their offerings. That means it’s really important for small business owners to get their business online even if they’re not as digitally inclined as others are so that they can sell more and don’t have to worry about missing out on potential sales. There’s tons of free and easy to use digital tools and technology out there that can help with building an online presence. Here’s a short list of the good ones.

Free digital tools to get your business online:

• Google Business Profile — Claim, edit and publish your business on a Google Listing
• Bookmark — free and easy to use AI cloud-based website builder (free until you choose to subscribe!)
• Shopify, Weebly, Squarespace — website building solutions that have free limited-time trials for up to 14 days
• Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, (basically any social media channel) — free until you choose to pay for advertising
• MailChimp — free email marketing tool (up to 2,000 contacts and 10,000 emails sent) to help you send communications via newsletters or promotional emails to your customers
• Canva — free graphic design tool that will help you create a e s t h e t i c social media posts and other creative assets

Google My Business is the absolute first tool you need to start with since potential customers will be looking for you with intent on a Google search. You need to be there and ready to present information when potential customers are looking for the answers that you have!

Second is building your website. This could either be a simple website with 1–4 webpages (Home, About, Service, Contact) or a much more complicated eCommerce store that contains dozens of your products. Either way, it’s really important to get one of these setup for customers to visit. These will enhance your reputation as a business because people will trust you even more if there’s more information about your business online compared to having none at all.

Next are your social media channels. This is where it can get tricky since choosing the right ones will depend on your business’ niche. Social media is a great way to engage with your customers outside of email and phone calls and create a community behind your brand.

You can engage with posting photos of your products, creatively designed quotes and can even upload videos of your day-to-day work. You can be as creative as you want as long as what you post are relevant to what you sell. See this article from Hootsuite, a social media management software company, to learn more about building a social media strategy.

What’s social media without pretty-looking graphics?

Canva is a free and easy-to-use graphic design tool that has templates of different variations to cater to your needs. Whether you want to create an Instagram post, or a Facebook cover photo for an event you’re setting up, or create a poster for print, Canva can help you do it all.

If you’ve already established yourself online, you’re probably thinking about what more can I do to improve my business online? You’ve probably heard of email marketing. Email marketing allows you to convert even more sales from your previous customers. You can be sending email campaigns that entice and promote different products or services that you think would pair well with that customer’s previous purchase from you.

You could also start a remarketing campaign that attempts to get customers that haven’t completed a purchase on your website to complete the sale.

Remarketing involves targeting customers who have already viewed something on your site or demonstrated interest in your products. It offers a means of reengaging customers who might have been browsing pages on your site, but did not follow through with a sale.

Sean from Lyfe Marketing

There are tons of other free tools out there but these are the most popular tools for beginners to start with.