It’s now more important for your business and brand to be online than ever before. Why? Every day that your brand isn’t online and connecting with your potential customers, your competition is!
Take a look at the following seven areas that your business must have a presence in right now and how you can connect with customers on a daily basis.
Social Networking is NOW
This one is just a no-brainer… over 1 billion users on Facebook and another few hundred million on Twitter. How can you afford not to have your customers following your brand on the major social networks in the world? It literally takes a few minutes to set up and it’s free. Do even more by creating your own branded Facebook Fan Page and allow users to “like” your brand and grow your exposure for you.
Blogging is Interaction
Having a blog for your business or brand is a huge step in the right direction. Not only will you be able to create articles that are focused on your business, services and products, but you will be able to improve your sites ranking in the search engines while also creating content that others will find value in. Blogging is also an excellent way to interact with your audience, as users can leave feedback on your posts and connect with other people reading your blog.
Newsletters = Inbox Messages
Starting a newsletter for your brand is an excellent way to stay in contact with your users and customers. Social networks are great, but getting someone’s email address allows you to connect directly with them and get your message right into their inbox. Using newsletters to promote sales, upcoming products and get user feedback is an excellent ways to increase your overall business sales and branding.
Email and Online Chat Please!
A growing trend online is to offer email and online chat for placing orders and support online. Not everyone likes to pick up the phone to ask a simple question or place an order. Increase overall sales and support by adding a phone number, email address and online chat capabilities to your business. Satisfy all of your customers’ needs.
Don’t Forget About Mobile
It would be a big mistake to implement all of these ideas and then miss out on the explosive growth in mobile right now. Don’t be afraid to collect the mobile number of your customers and those who visit your site. Make sure you are approaching these promotions correctly, such as offering free coupons or discounts in exchange for their number. Retail businesses are doing very well with text promotions and alerts right now… are you?
Your Competition is Doing It!
‘Nuff said on this one… for every thing that you aren’t doing online, some of your competitors are, whether it’s being on the major social networks and forgetting about the smaller ones, or only having a phone number for support on your site and not offering email/chat. Do everything you can for your business to BE EVERYWHERE and DO EVERYTHING you can for the customer.
Creating the Ultimate Online Experience
The best bet for your business is to take all of the recommended business tactics above and implement them all within your business. It’s incredibly easy to set up your own social networking pages, a blog, newsletter and chat support, then have them all come together at your main site. Remember, you are the business… but the customer is always right. Give them what they want, which is to be treated like a valued customer and not someone who is getting advertising pushed down their throats.
I am blogging on behalf of Visa Business and received compensation for my time from Visa for sharing my views in this post, but the views expressed here are solely mine, not Visa’s. Visit https://facebook.com/visasmallbiz to take a look at the reinvented Facebook Page: Well Sourced by Visa Business. The Page serves as a space where small business owners can access educational resources, read success stories from other business owners, engage with peers, and find tips to help businesses run more efficiently. Every month, the Page will introduce a new theme that will focus on a topic important to a small business owner’s success. For additional tips and advice, and information about Visa’s small business solutions, follow @VisaSmallBiz and visit https://visa.com/business.