May 28, 2020 Wesbank, business on-line raised profile
How to raise the profile of your business online
According to a https://www.businessinsider.co.za/south-africa-one-of-the-worlds-top-internet-users-hootsuite-report-2019-2, South African Internet users spend more time online than many other countries. Local Internet users are online roughly eight hours and 23 minutes every day. This is a third more time online than Americans and almost double than Germans.
Just about everyone you know, whether at home or at work, is linked up online and busily surfing the Internet. These days your customers, staff, kids and even your competitors expect you to access the Internet and for you to be accessible online.
Raising the profile of your business online in a manner that talks to your customers is a must. Creative businesses establish an online presence because they realise that today’s clients expect to find them there. Newly formed and established businesses alike recognise that an online presence is essential for success.
Here are some important aspects to consider regarding an online presence for your business:
Be intentional about creating an online presence - You can’t afford to ignore that South African Internet users spend over eight hours online daily. In order to be part of the cyberspace community and to show your customers that you are available to service their needs conveniently, you need to have an online presence. Online presence is a vital 21st century marketing tool.
Use your online presence to keep people informed - Key information addresses the following:
• “This is what we do”
• “Here is how we can help you”
• “Here is how you can access our services or products”
You can provide this information to both existing and potential customers anywhere in the world, simply, inexpensively and 24 hours a day online.
Use your online presence imaginatively to achieve the following:
• Heighten your brand awareness
• Heighten public interest
• Answer frequently asked questions about your products and services, and about your business
• Make changes instantly and economically with respect to new prices, information, products and services
• Interact with both existing and prospective customers and get feedback on how they experience your business
Use your online presence to serve clients and customers - Making business information available is an important component of customer service and assists with customer retention. Creative use of your website will allow customers to order online, pre-qualify for certain services, make specific enquiries, seek your latest advice, see your specials and so on.
By building an online response system into your online platforms, you can ask for instant customer feedback about your products or services without the cost and lack of response often experienced through traditional customer feedback methods. A point of caution: customers expect real time responses when they interact with you online. Ensure that you have sufficient capacity to meet this expectation, otherwise this can backfire badly and have an unintended negative effect on your business.
Use your online presence to sell your product or service - Recent https://www.businessinsider.co.za/online-shopping-takealot-paypal-retail-2019-7 indicates that South Africans are spending more at online stores than ever before and will spend R61 billion at online stores by 2020. Although most of this increased spend is determined by convenience and low costs, online retailers make use of a variety of techniques to get users to visit their stores, and to buy more than initially intended.
This includes offering incentives for signing up for store newsletters, which offer specials, discounts, and other promotions in an attempt to get customers back onto their shopping platform. Some local online stores now also allow shoppers to skip the website experience and buy directly from a dedicated mobile app that sends push notifications directly to their pocket. Other techniques include “recommended” tabs, abandoned cart emails with discount codes to resuscitate lost sales, limited time only discounts, limited stock alerts, free shipping with minimum spends, and free returns.
The introduction of universal codes of practice, security and protection of personal information, as well as effective payment processing pave the way for consumers to bank online and purchase anything from cars to insurance products and even homes without leaving home.
Use your online presence to expand your markets - The beauty of online presence is that it enables you to reach your neighbourhood market as well as anywhere else in the country and even overseas. https://news.itu.int/itu-statistics-leaving-no-one-offline/ estimates that there are 3.9 billion people using the Internet – more than half of the world’s population. Whether you sell nuts, fish tanks or highly specialised services, digital platforms will enable your customers to find you through available search engines. Put a lot of time into developing your online presence and give people a reason to keep coming back.
You can serve your clients and customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week and with no overtime pay. Customise information to match the needs of your customers and collect data to put you ahead of your competition.
As they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words” and “a moving picture is worth a million people”. Take advantage of exploiting the additional benefits that online platforms allow you, to communicate better and try new creative ways of interacting with your customers.
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