You’re digital. Even if you mind

People talk about your business online even if you aren’t.

You don’t have a social media page? You don’t run Google Ads? You haven’t updated your website for the past 10 years? Doesn’t matter. You still need to control everything linked to your business online.

If you don’t, somebody else will. For example, your clients or your customers. That’s why you need to create and maintain your business image, tell your story, and educate your customers.

If you don’t manage your online presence proactively, you’ll start ranking lower on Google, you’ll get fewer customers and, eventually, you’ll lose profit.

10 Years Ago vs. Now

Ten years ago, a business could be referred to as “digital” if it had a website and at least one active social media page. Today it’s like having nothing other than a business card. It’s fine, but not enough.

An average American sees between 4,000 and 10,000 ads per day (this number is relevant to other regions as well). This means that your business fights for users’ attention with direct and non-direct competitors, governmental ads, local announcements and all accompanying advertising noise. It happens daily.

Winning this fight seems to be a pretty hard job. Fortunately, all the tech advancements have not changed human psychology: we still respond to the right advertising messages that take into account our personal interests and are shown to us at the right time and in the right place.

Therefore, cutting through the noise is possible with a systemic and consistent approach.

Digitize. Immediately!

78% of customers prefer brands that offer personalization based on their hobbies, behavioural patterns and purchase history. You need to keep this in mind when taking these steps to digitize your business and build effective communication with customers:

Study your target audience and analyze its customer journey.

There is a lot of buzz around this topic. Yet, only few businesses move beyond the standard description “TA: men, 45+ , average income.” To do it right, you need to dig deeper into customers’ lives to understand their concerns and needs to offer affordable and convenient solutions to their problems at the right stage of their customer journey.

Analyze your product and compare it with your competitors.

It is necessary to find differentiation points from competitors and link them to the explicit and hidden needs of the target audience. Ideally, you should get an answer to the question “Why does the client choose my product over competitor’s?” and “What brand/ad message will attract more loyal followers to my brand?”

Customize, analyze and optimize your digital campaigns.

Communicate with customers constantly. But don’t overdo it. For example, if a customer has already read an email with a promotional offer, you should not duplicate the same offer via WhatsUp or other messaging platform. It’s manageable as long as all online customer connections with your brand are easy to track.

In fact, any modern business can be compared to the creation of a subscription-as-a-service (SaaS) product. Here’s what you should focus on: customer development, user flow analysis and optimization, a perfect product-market fit (or at least movement in this direction) and constant marketing optimization (and automation) which brings you closer to data-driven decision-making.

Digital pandemic

Despite increasing competition, businesses that are consciously digitizing their processes and customer acquisition flow are not only successfully navigating through the pandemic, but also increasing their turnover and the number of active customers.

In the following articles, I will tell more about companies from the pharmaceutical, banking, construction and retail industries surviving and thriving during COVID-19.