Can Your Business Exist Without a Digital Presence?
Digital Strategy
How do you buy your products or find directions? What about product reviews, research, customer service? Most likely it’s through the web via search engines, websites and social media.
And now mobile devices allow you to take the web everywhere you go. Even if your product or service is one that can’t be delivered digitally (medical professionals, events, food, etc.), you need a digital presence or your business is essentially invisible.
Yahoo Small Business Advisor recently published a syndicated post titled, 5 Types of Businesses That Will Cease to Exist in 2014. Feel free to read the full post if you want but,
Here’s The List:
- J.C. Penny & Ilk
- E-Readers
- Hollywood
- DVD and Blu-Ray Disc Manufacturing
- and Whoever Makes Keys
And while we don’t agree with the entire list, they have some things in common–physical products and brick and mortar (B&M) stores.
In a world where we all get reviews from Amazon, stream movies and TV from Netflix, and shop almost exclusively on the Internet, can your business exist without a digital presence? More importantly, should it?
The answer to the latter question is much easier to answer, and it’s a resounding “NO!”
Where to Start
Website
Your website serves as a digital home base for your business and should present your visitors with enough information to make an informed decision about why they should pick you over every other business in the category they searched on the Internet.
Social Media
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google+, Instagram and all the other options are more than just personal social networks. They’re easy to start. They give you a platform for engaging with your customers. They’re fantastic for customer service. There’s also a very low overhead, and they can be automated.
eCommerce
If your product can be sold online, it should be sold online. Looked at from a more granular perspective, this could also include account management, appointment booking, material ordering and payroll. If all these things are handled digitally, you don’t need to worry about physical copies, time management issues or postage.
We’ll dive deeper into all of these things in future posts. For now, think about the current presence your business has digitally and what you can do to improve it… or ask us!