One of the things businesses learned the hard way is how important it is to be digital. With the start of the COVID-19 pandemic already 2 years ago, many small companies or such that neglected their online presence suffered greatly. Others that already started with the digital transformation of their business saw the positive effect immediately and continued to improve their online presents and digitalization initiatives.
The hard times showed us that making your business digital is not only beneficial but is crucial if you would like to survive. Even now, when things are getting back to normal, many people won't lose the habit of shopping online just because it is so easy. And no one can guarantee that another series of lockdowns won't happen, and we just won't have the choice. This is why it is better to be prepared for any possible complications that might occur and make it harder or impossible for the traditional way of shopping to continue just as we know it.
A business can't be prepared for everything that might happen, of course, but making your business digital can be a solution to many issues — existing and potential ones. If you would like to keep your company running under any occasion that this is the way to go. You will be able to keep serving your customers as usual and even facilitate their interaction with your brand. Even in cases where traditional shopping can go as it is, having a digitalized version is always a great idea. It can give you another spin on your brand and expand your reach significantly.
But making your business digital is not only creating a website or eCommerce shop or being present on social media. Those aspects will bring you more visibility and potential clients, but digital transformation is also part of the process. Digital transformation can also help you internally for optimizing processes, gather more data, analyze information faster and better, increase return on investment, and much more. Making your business digital on the customer-facing side is as important as investing in internal digital transformation.
The truth is that almost anything can be digitalized, and any business can benefit from such an improvement. But not only big companies — small businesses or even freelancers doing some craft items can benefit from having an online presence. And what about also governmental organizations and departments that can save a lot of time for people if they just go digital and we don't have to line for hours? Let's dig deeper into some particular benefits of going digital.
Sales and customer support going digital
Selling your products or services online is just one additional stream of income. If you do it hand in hand with selling using traditional shopping, you can only increase your revenue and improve your business performance. Many people are so busy during their workdays that they don't have the time to go to the closest shopping center. And on the weekend they just want to relax and spend time with their loved ones. But shopping online is so effortless, and you can do it from anywhere at any time.
Anyone with a smartphone can get everything they need even while traveling home after work while sitting on the subway. Or you can spare 20 minutes of your evening to choose the perfect pair of shoes and a jacket that will match them among so many options. If you have a site or an application, your customers will be able to get whatever they need from you with only just a couple of clicks when they have 10 minutes available. Like this, you are not missing potential customers that just don't have traditional shopping or they don't like it that much.
However, with online shopping, there comes the need for digitalized customer service. Online shopping hides some risks that the in-person one doesn't, and you need to be prepared to assist your customers with those. Having an excellent customer services team to support your clients is the way to do so. If there are some issues with your site or products, your support agents will be happy to assist and answer any questions. The same applies, for example, if there are issues with payment, delivery, damaged items, returns, etc. Having a customer support team that can assist your clients online is crucial.
You will expand your reach and increase brand awareness
If you would like to increase your digital presence, you should most definitely think about being present on social media, creating or participating in affiliate marketing programs, engaging in guest posting, and any other activity that can guarantee you bigger exposure. Like this, you will reach many more people and make them familiar with your brand. Such activities will expose your business to people you would usually not reach with traditional marketing or shopping.
Of course, expanding your reach and finding more and more potential customers will increase your brand recognition and awareness. If you create engaging content on any topic interesting to your public, they will be more willing to return to your site or online shop and perform more purchases. Your brand voice will become recognizable, and people will form a connection with you. Like this, their loyalty will increase, and the possibility for them to recommend your brand to someone else will be higher as well.
Using the right tools will improve your daily work
As we mentioned making your business digital is not only for the customer-facing side. You can achieve as much and maybe even more by investing in the internal digital transformation of your company. All your employees, no matter in which department they are or in which position, need the right tools to be able to execute their job. And by the right tools, we mean the ones that will help them do their monotone tasks as quickly and as efficiently as possible so that they can invest more time in the really important stuff. Many tasks can be completely automated or at least highly optimized by using the right piece of software.
You can create a plan on how to start and then proceed with your company's digital transformation. Check with each team which is the most tedious tasks that are just very repetitive and maybe can be automated. Try to find tools that can help them execute those tasks faster or completely take them away. Once you have done this stage — continue with the next processes or workflows you would like to optimize. Of course, some can't be optimized because they are just very particular, but the improvement of the others will already greatly help your employees.
When choosing the right tools, think about the complexity of the tool as well. Not everyone has a lot of technical skills and knowledge, and not everyone actually needs them. So, if you want to make sure everything works smoothly, train your employees on how they can use the tools at their disposal and have clear documentation on what workflows look like. When small repetitive tasks are taken away from people, they have more time to invest in activities that are crucial for the business and bring your company's progress even further.
Should your business go digital?
Going digital is now more than mandatory. Try to increase your online presence by actively using channels your clients are interested in. Set yourself the right goals and try to reach them by, for example, creating a Facebook page or a Reddit community. There are so many options for taking advantage of digital marketing that there will undoubtedly be some that will fit your business like a glove. And don't forget to continue with your company's digital transformation because it just goes hand in hand with making your business digital. Don't hesitate and explore the new possibilities this will bring you.
