For the past year, we’ve mostly been keeping our heads down. It’s now time to step out and really revamp your online business strategy for the end of 2021. No matter the situation now is the time to take stock of how you want to finish up this year and move into the next one. Let’s explore a few tried and tested online business strategies proven to attract customers and keep businesses profitable.
Table of Contents
Remain consistent
Your content and branding should have a clear, consistent, and cohesive story across all channels. Keeping consistent means that when your customer comes across something that reminds them of your company logo, color, or aesthetic, they think of your company – even in a totally unrelated situation. Mixing up colors, logos, and looks is a sure-fire way to confuse consumers and erode your own brand image, from the inside out.
Make sure your content is share-worthy
All content should be original, meaning it’s not a copy and paste job from your favorite website or blog. If you do decide to share someone else’s material, make sure you clearly cite it in the document to avoid plagiarism. All content should also be well organized, easy to read (the typical bench-mark is an 8th-grade reading level), and compelling. Consider branching out into new mediums, like video, SEO, or animation, for a little extra share-worthy street credit.
Plan for the holiday season
Unsurprisingly, holiday spending in 2020 surged by over 32% to $188.2 billion USD. As the 2021 holiday season approaches, many people will either be seeing and spending time with loved ones for the first time in a long time or will be further separated and will need some holiday cheer. Is an online business strategy to make plans now to accommodate the yearly upward swing in purchases during the holiday season. This would also be a great time to do an analysis of your shipping methods, to ensure all holiday orders are delivered on time, and in one piece.
Safety management system
Due to our increased focus on health, many companies are implementing new safety management systems, to ensure workers are safe at the factory or office. This can range from body temperature readers to pass keys and logs of any sensitive areas of the office. Other companies are using safety management technology to watch for unsafe conditions on factory floors, those who aren’t keeping an appropriate social distance, or even for those who aren’t wearing the proper safety equipment.
Consider the audience
Marketing material should always carefully consider the audience. For some quick and free audience analysis, look at your social media analytics, and focus on the articles or content that got the most likes or shares. Some enterprises are reaching out directly to consumers to ask what they need, how they can change their products, or just to remind them of your product or service. Email marketing is great for this, or make use of free online surveys or polls.
SEO your digital content
It’s critical that your company site appears on the first page of search engine results, and to do that, you need search engine optimization. SEO is the process of adding keywords, internal links, and back-links to a piece of content, signaling to search engines like Google that you are well organized and offer need-to-read information. SEO also includes details like how you name the video or visual files on your page, and how long your page takes to load – all of which will inform how high up you appear on Google search results.
Optimizing your website
First, ensure your page loads in under 3 seconds, by compressing any videos or images on your main page, or moving them to a secondary page. Follow this up by making sure your page is easy to navigate, with a home button on each page, and clearly marked purchase buttons. Make the checkout process as easy as possible, by ensuring all critical information is available on all pages of the process. Smart home provider, Plume, estimates that there will be 8.4 billion digital voice assistants by 2024 and 18.22 billion devices in use globally. You will want to make sure your site is ready for mobile use and doesn’t cut off information if accessed on a smartphone.
Online businesses are in a period of learning and growth, learning how to deal with our new normal. As more people use the internet as a lifeline to their goods and services, they expect more of their online vendors – an area where you don’t want to fall short. Take time today to update your online business strategy to really take advantage of the end of the year, and set yourself up for success in 2022.
