Three of the focuses of my blog are Current Events, Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. During the Coronavirus/Covid-19 lockdown, many businesses have done okay because they’re doing business online which doesn’t require coming into personal contact with people. The following contributed post is entitled, Your Business During Lockdown: How The Online World Could Change The Way You Do.
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We are in a very uncertain and unique time of our lives right now. With a lot of the world grinding to a halt, it can mean that you start to worry about your business. Running a business even in normal times can be quite difficult. Starting out, finding investment and launching your new business venture always seems uncertain at the beginning, and with so many businesses failing in that crucial first year you may think you are out of deep water, only to find that you are now in a period of time that seems more uncertain than ever. Especially if you rely on people dealing with your business face to face, such as providing a service or even having a shop that you would normally sell from.
So what can you do? Many businesses have had to diversify and change their processes, and this can mean utilising the online and digital world more than you have ever done before. It can seem daunting at first, but there are so many ways that you can enhance your business this way and this could present a whole new line of opportunity for your business to grow and develop in the future. With that in mind, here are some of the ways that the online world might start to change the way you do business moving forward.
Image source – Pixabay – CC0 License
A social media strategy
One of the first things to think about would be to develop a new social media strategy. More people are having to stay indoors and that can mean that more time is spent browsing their social media channels and platforms. So now more than ever your business needs to be relevant and visual online. Coming up with a new social media strategy is a great way to make your content relevant and consistent. You can also ensure that you use this time to engage with your audience and also reply to direct messages and comments. Humanising your business in some way will help you to appear relatable, especially in these uncertain times. You could also use social media to offer up content or even a freebie to entice people to look into your business and what you can offer in more detail. Many have offered free online resources or shared video content to highlight their business in a different way.
Updating your website
You may have had a basic website to get you this far., but now you can use the time to enhance your website and add different pages to it. This might be looking at your ecommerce shop and making it easier for people to buy products or order services from you. It might be that you create more content for the website, or improve things such as explanations for the products and services that you provide. This could be the ideal time to look at making these changes so that you can make your website more appealing when people click through to it.
Having an up to date CRM system
Another thing that you might want to sort now that you have some time is your customer relationship management system. Now more than ever you will want to look after the customers and clients that you have, as well as attracting new ones into your business. This is when you want to update your system and also correct any information that might be incorrect. You could use the time to contact these customers directly, be that on email address or calling them to ensure that you have the right details. This might also be the perfect time for some data capture, so if you don’t have email addresses, for example, which can be an excellent way to directly market your customer base, then you could try and find out this information and update your records accordingly.
Taking advantage of alternative marketing methods
Now that you have lost one of the main sources of marketing, which could be face to ace business, you may want to think about alternative methods. It could be that you look at prospecting and suing things like the Drop Cowboy Ringless Voicemail to advertise and make contact with customers. You could look at creating an email newsletter where you could keep existing as well as new customers up to date with your offers and what your business is doing during these unprecedented times.
Image source – Pixabay – CC0 License
Making the most of remote working options
Now that you are unable to work in your office or retail premises, you may have to start getting a little more investive with your remote working options. Things like video calling have proven really popular during the lockdown period. Skype and Zoom are excellent ways to create video conferencing and meetings and allows you to communicate as well as you could be doing physically. You could also look at things such as email communication as well as phone calls. You may still be able to operate your business, even from home.
Finding other ways to expand your business
During these times you may not be fully operational or able to provide a full service from your business, so you may want to seize the opportunity to try and find other ways to expand and diversify your business. This might be things such as a blog as an extension to your business, where you can collaborate with other businesses and create sponsored content. It might be that you create a product that can be supplied during this time, or provide a service in a different way. It is now time to think outside of the box and look for different ways where you can enhance your business and continue to make a profit and be successful.
Using the time to take on the jobs you wouldn’t normally get to
Finally, you could use this time to do things that you might not normally have done. It could be that you improve the content on your website and take more notice of things like search engine optimization. Sometimes these administrative tasks can take up a lot of your time, but now that you have the lockdown period you can really see it as an opportunity and not a hindrance.
Let’s hope these tips help you when it comes to your business in lockdown.
