Here’s How To Offer Your Products and Services Virtually
If you are one of the millions of small business owners around the world, you are currently trying to figure out how to navigate these trying times by finding easy ways to move your small business online.
Every industry is feeling the effects of the global pandemic. Whether you own a small business or a large corporation, you now know it’s imperative to offer business online.
Why Should You Move Your Business Online?
With the Covid-19 pandemic upon us, we now see the benefits of being able to deliver products and services even if your customers are unable to come into your physical location. This is not only imperative to your business’ survival but for the financial well-being of your employees as well. Additionally, you don’t want your customers to miss out on having access to your products and services, do you?
Here’s why you should move your business online:
- Quarantine and Stay-at-Home Orders – The stay-at-home orders being issued all over the world means that customers and clients are no longer able to come into your business as normal. This limits how you are able serve them. Allowing them to still access your business online will keep your business going and keep your customers happy.
- Make Your Business More Visible – Now more than ever, persons are staying at home whether by free will or rules enforced. This has caused a greater number of shoppers to do more online shopping to meet their needs and reduce the need to leave their homes. If your business is online, you will be able to tap into this pool of billions of potential customers. You have to be online for people to find you.
- Increase Your Reach – Make use of the opportunity to expand your business through digital platforms to reach more customers. Your online business can reach customers anywhere in the world when you increase your online presence. It’s all the benefits of having a business without the geographical restrictions of a physical location. With moving online or having an online shop, you have a higher chance of reaching a new or larger audience in a strategic way.
How To Setup Your Business Online
- Get A Website – Your website is everything for your online business. It is your home base and it is important to get it right. It must be visually-appealing, be easy to navigate, and have information that gives clarity to your visitors on who you are and on why they should purchase products and services from your business. Ensure your website is built by an experienced website designer with a track-record of building websites that convert. The website’s design should fit well with the visual branding in its entirety. Your website copy should also communicate the brand positioning and tell your visitors what sets you apart from other businesses.
- Add Products/Services to Your Website – The fundamental things you need to add to your products are the names, prices, categories, and weight, etc. Some things to consider when uploading your products are the product images and descriptions. These must be optimized and written with the intent to convince your visitors that they need your items. Your product description should be convincing but try to avoid complex jargon and cliches in your writing. A detailed product description can be what gets you a sale.
- Set Up Payments – E-commerce website builders make the process easier by connecting you directly to different payment options. Some payments options are PayPal, Apple Pay, Visa, and MasterCard. The most popular ways of receiving payment are through a simplified credit card payment process where you use a service that integrates with your store’s checkout, and merchant account and payment gateways. This where you partner with a bank to accept payments on behalf of your business and channel the money into your business bank account.
- Optimize Your Website for Search Engines – Increasing your website traffic through search engine results is known as Search Engine Optimization. SEO helps your website become more discoverable and makes it easy for customers to find you using keywords specific to your business. When potential customers search terms related to your brand, they will have a better chance of discovering your website and becoming a customer.
- Create Social Media Profiles and Post to Them – Social media is a critical part of any business strategy. It is a great way to connect with people who already know and love your brand and for new leads to learn of it. You can build great relationships on social media by developing a coherent social media strategy, posting content your followers love, and communicating often with them.
- Create Ad Campaigns – An ad campaign is about connecting with even more customers by placing ads in front of a targeted audience who are more likely to respond and engage with your offerings. In doing this, you have to identify your target customers, determine the best ways to reach them, create a brand that they will readily recognize and align with your business, conduct market research, produce marketing materials to promote your company’s goods and services, and test target markets to know which campaigns produce the most sales. Google Ads or social media ads can be used to create and manage these campaigns. You have full control of your budget and you can customize the audience based on gender, age, location and other demographics.
- Start An Email List – The email list is a crucial part of your business because it is important to stay in touch with your customers. If you collect their email addresses, you can communicate your offerings and other updates with them. You can also use the email addresses to target them in your ads.
- Offer Your Products & Services Online – Matching product needs or desires is the art of selling online. Make your products and services easily accessible online and communicate their value to your audience. This means a website, social media profiles, listings in online directories, etc. must clearly state what you do and what you offer. They must also show how customers can contact you and/or purchase your products and services.
Stay In Touch With Your Clients
Your customer will have the same struggle of a flooded inbox as you do. That is why you make every interaction relevant. Instead of only sending clients messages about products and services that you offer, you should also give help to your clients in any way you can with no strings attached.
Use the various communication channels and keep in contact every few weeks via email, but much more often on social media. Respond to messages and stay up to date on the latest trends. Use the platforms to your advantage but remember to only offer value. Don’t contact them if you don’t have anything of value to offer.
Businesses everywhere are experiencing tough times. Diversify and keep your business afloat by moving most or all of your product and services offerings online.
We can help you! Contact evlos digital for help with your website, branding, copywriting, and other digital marketing needs if you are ready to effortlessly scale your business.