How to keep your small business thriving online
With the digital world always changing and adapting, it can be hard to keep up and know the best ways to navigate through the constantly evolving landscape. 2020 taught us that if we can adapt to fit our consumers' needs then we should be more likely to be able to survive challenging periods. More than ever before, companies need to create an online space for their consumers to have access to their business. However, if you have been inspired to start up your own business but have no idea where to begin, or if you’re a business that’s made that step to being online and now need more information on how to compete, we wanted to share some tips for how your small business can thrive online.
Before you even think about setting up your website or social media, it’s important to understand your consumers—do your research. You need to know what consumers are looking for and what will make them buy your product.
Consumer research allows you to identify your audience’s preferences, motivations, attitudes, and behaviour towards buying. When using different methods of research, it allows you to gather enough information to understand the different customer groups and buyer personas—you can then use this information to create campaigns tailored to a specific segment or persona. Having this research will help your business grow as you understand what your customers are looking for. The information you gather can determine the way you develop your product, build your site, and design the message for your target audience(s). And, it is important to keep on top of this data over time, keeping it updated as consumers’ needs and wants change. Also, as you get things up and running and can gather more data, you will start to notice patterns of why people shop, how they shop, and what makes them want to buy your product; from which, you can alter elements on your website to improve the user experience and get better results.
When you know what and who your consumers are, it is important to then optimise your website for SEO
When your website is set up with search engine optimisation (SEO) in mind, it can allow your website to be more discoverable to potential customers. SEO is a form of inbound marketing that is customer-centric. It is designed to work around the consumer rather than interrupting them; like outbound marketing or cold calls, etc. SEO acts as a helpful resource that makes the information the customer requires available with ease to them when they are researching or looking for specific products.
When customers search terms that relate to your brand, and you have optimised your website well, you are more likely to appear higher in the organic search results. This means they are more likely to click onto your site and look into what you have to offer. Good SEO can also lead to a better quality of traffic on your site as the potential customer has found you through relevant search queries, therefore, you are reaching your target consumer directly where they are looking.
Once you have got the attention of your target consumer, you then need to convert them to paying consumers by having a well-designed website that is user friendly.
When a potential customer has found your website, you need to keep them interested and engaged on your site. If your site makes the time spent on it frustrating and slow, they will more than likely leave with a bad first impression. Users need to be able to easily and successfully navigate through your site, regardless of which device they are on, to achieve their end goal; ordering, subscribing, or even contacting you. If your site has a bad user experience, this makes that journey hard on the user and, in turn, makes it one that they will be less inclined to complete—investing in your site’s UX from the get-go is incredibly important. It can also be helpful to display your products in an attractive way that you know will appeal to your target audience and make them want to buy it. However, creating an online store is a long-term process that will need to be continually updated and improved to suit your consumers and allow your business to grow.
Another way to make the user experience more accessible is to add calls to action on each page; encouraging users to contact you or buy a product. It can be far more convenient if there are appropriate, clickable links to enable consumers to have a smooth experience and get exactly what they wanted out of visiting your site—hopefully, making a lasting impression that will make them want to return.
When your site is set up, you should connect analytics that will allow you to collect data that shows the impact and behaviours on it; enabling you to update accordingly and continue your online success.
Having analytics for your site can improve its success by allowing you to see when your customers take action. For example, if during their journey on your site they end up clicking the call to action button or purchasing; or, sometimes more importantly, when and why they choose not to. In even simpler terms, with analytics, you can also see if you're reaching your target audience by viewing the demographics of your traffic to determine their age, gender, location, and more. Should you be running any campaigns and have to make adjustments, you would then be able to tailor your campaigns to people more likely to engage with your brand off the back of your analytics data. Analytics also allows you to break down incoming traffic and any campaigns running, allowing you to see which referring channels make the most impact. So, for example, if you were putting the majority of your efforts into maintaining a great Facebook page but noticed that your Instagram account was bringing in more traffic and conversions, you would know to change your strategy to focus on Instagram more and potentially consider introducing advertising on that channel to increase results.
In short, analytics provides invaluable insights into your customers and the overall impact of your marketing mix—without it, you won’t be able to make as informed decisions about your business digitally.
Always make it easy for customers to contact you so that, if there are any issues, they can be quickly resolved; ensuring they are more likely to shop with you again.
When customers are uncertain about your products or have any questions that cannot be answered on your website, they need to be able to reach out and get in touch with you. An answered question could be the difference between a conversion or no conversion. But, with this in mind, you need to make sure you can also cater to as wide a range of consumers as possible. Some may not follow through if you only have a phone number and they are more comfortable with emails. By ensuring that there are multiple forms of communication, customers should be more inclined to follow through and contact you. Simply having a contact page can result in a reduction of their frustration, which is always positive—in fact, 44% of consumers say customer service distinguishes a brand from its peers.
Some quick, actionable suggestions for your contact page are:
Use a contact form so that customers can get in touch without leading them away from your site.
When listing a number on your site, make sure it’s clickable. This will prevent them from having to type it in—a small detail but one that makes their life easier.
Have an email address? Make that clickable too, so that when they do, it automatically opens their mailing software and allows them to quickly write out a message.
Social media has also become a hub for customer service. Research shows that 40% of consumers expect brands to respond within the first hour of reaching out on social media, while 79% expect a response in the first 24 hours. This alone shows the importance of consumers being able to reach out and contact your brand and highlights the increasing amount of consumers relying on social media as a form of communication with brands as a whole.
Following some of these tips should help you develop your small business’s site and online presence—but, there’s a world of resources out there that can help you get started.
What is your online strategy for this year? After Digital is an award-winning digital agency and if you think your company needs our help, you can get in touch with us today!