I work with a large number of small business owners seeking to get their new business off the ground, or trying to re-vamp the business to reach the success that they are looking for. Something which often surprises me with offline businesses are the fact that they believe the internet is not for them, simply because they do not operate online. This could not be further from the truth however and anyone with a business, be it online or offline, must learn how to unlock the potential of their business through the use of the world wide web.
Recruitment
Recruitment plays a vita role in any successful business and it is vital that you get the choice right first time. It is relatively simple for you to perform a background check on your applicants, but you should go deeper than that and check people online to really get an understanding of what this person is like. Through the monitoring of social channels and historical online activity, you can get a far better sense of what kind of character your applicant has.
Reviews
Even if your business does not operate online you can bet that there is at least one Google review out there about your company or its products. The first thing to note here is that you should be interactive on review sites, giving thanks for positive feedback and offering a refund or dealing with negative reviews. Unfortunately your inactivity on these sites could lend itself to a scam review, where someone is seeking to damage the company reputation with a negative review, this could easily come from an angry ex-employee or a member of your competition. The more active you are on these sites, the better you can improve and preserve your reputation.
Marketing
Traditional forms of marketing such as radio or TV ads simply do not work to a high enough level anymore for it to be considered cost-effective, the new world is all about digital marketing. In fact a recent study from the Better Business Bureau (BBB) actually found that more than half of all consumers will use search engines to find the business or service that they are looking for, regardless of whether it operates online or not. Essentially the search engine is the new Yellow Pages, and you need to make sure that everyone knows where to find you. Through using a smart digital media campaign that involves email marketing, SEO and social media marketing, you can reach a huge audience and promote your business. The best part about promoting your business like this is that you can actually view how many people you are reaching and use metrics to drill down to the right demographics for your business.
Don’t overlook the power of the internet just because you don’t operate there, if you do then you will struggle against those who are present online.
