“Is my Business ready to go digital?” If you’re a business that has not made an entry to the Digital World, you’re probably trying to answer this question. Let me make it simple for you- This question is rhetorical as the answer to this question can’t be ‘No’. If your business is not ready to be digital yet, it needs to be. There is a large audience out there waiting for your product/ service to reach them.
In this article, I’m going to address the problems you will face when getting your brand digital and provide a solution to them. Irrespective if you’re a B2B, B2C, Small, Medium or Large Enterprise, or even a freelancer. And I am going to answer the real question being “What does going digital mean for your business?”
Well, this question needs to be answered for your brand by yourself. But I’ve included some examples that will help you answer the same for your brand. Let’s dive right into it.
If you’re a service provider,
The obstacles that will come your way when you’re taking your brand digital will be related to your team and resources. You need to address the question, “If your current team is enough and capable to take the projects that will come your way when you grow digital?”
For instance, Let’s say you’re an architectural firm.
On the digital end, you might need a website that displays your portfolio, testimonials and gives the prospects an address to your office, your contact details, etc. You might want to manage social media accounts on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest to showcase your work through the power of images and videos.
On the performance end, you’re going to need a team of skilled workers like designers, carpenters, painters, etc. Let’s say you are going digital with the objective of getting more orders. Here, you need to be sure that your team is not working on a project and is all ready to take on a new project. Or that if they are working on a project already, the timeline needs to be shared with the client as to when the project can be started and completed.
If you’re running ads in a different city, you need to make sure that you have a team ready to take on projects in that location. Also, make sure your suppliers are delivering materials you’re gonna need to these locations. Or get a new supplier to supply your team with materials in that location.
In short, what I mean is that have a strong team ready so that you’re able to deliver. Have a strong backend, or have arrangements in place before you go all out on Digital Platforms.
If you’re dealing in goods, (Manufacturer, Wholesaler, Retailer)
You’re going to approach the digitization in a different way than that of a service provider. I’ve mentioned how digitization will help your brand optimally.
For instance, let’s say you’re a B2C Coffee Company.
On the digital end, you’re gonna need an e-commerce website to sell your products and receive payments. You may need Social Media accounts to run advertisements and marketing campaigns to boost your sales.
Pay close attention, let me show you how you can use Digital Platforms to grow your company substantially.
Let’s say you’re running with a production capacity providing for 10,000 orders per day. And you’re looking for growing your company by getting more orders. A great way to test the waters before you increase your production capacity would be to run rigorous marketing campaigns to test the market demand for your product.
Once you’ve started receiving orders more than your production capacity, you can empty your inventory on your e-commerce website and display an “Out of Stock” message to your customers. Once these orders get constant using digital media marketing, you can invest in increasing your production capacity mitigating the risk of product wastage. So here, it’s important to test the market demand for your products before you strengthen your back end.
Now to keep your brand growing, you’re going to need to invest in your brand in certain ways like getting a customer service rep to make sure you get repeat orders by solving your customer’s problems if any, etc. You’re going to need to invest in front end as your business grows.
It can get overwhelming for brands to handle these activities all at once. And you’re getting into business not just to make more money by selling goods but to live life on your terms. So what good if you’re getting busier as the business grows. So there are two ways from here. Either build up an in-house team to manage these activities or there are companies out there who you can outsource the activities to.
A great one I’ve come across is sell-globally.com They will help you sell your products overseas on online Market Places like Amazon, eBay, etc. Handling everything right from product photography, cataloging, shipping your products, to marketing & advertising, Payments & Reporting.
If you’re a freelancer Photographer, You might want to have a website showcasing your portfolio online, an Instagram page with your photographs, and your contact details. A great way to get more orders would be to put up gigs on Fiverr, a freelancing website. They handle everything from getting you customers to the payments by deducting a percentage from your revenue.
Digitization of a Business is a must. It’s a wide field. And you get to decide where and how you showcase your brand. It is important that you form a well informed Digital Marketing Strategy to optimally use your resources to get the maximum out of it. Here are links to my articles on Why your business needs a website’ and ‘Social Media’ that will help you optimize your digital marketing strategy.
