5 Quarantine Takeaways for Sioux Falls Businesses
1. Get Online!
The quarantine has been an eye-opening experience for everyone. Especially if you are a B2C business in Sioux Falls.
With the Stay at Home orders and limiting of customers inside businesses, it is more important than ever to have another way to conduct business.
Having a website is not longer a “Nice to have” it is a “Need to have”. Most customers are already researching a company or product before they ever make a purchase. Especially now, f you are not online, it’s like you don’t even exist.
2. Have a Social Media Presence
Social Media is a great way for businesses to stay in touch with their customers. You can do a variety of things of the different platforms, from special offers, discounts, coupons, referral programs and many more.
This is a cheap and effective way to engage with your customers. However, simply having a page up on a platform is not enough. You need to use these tools on a regular basis.
This chart shows what percentage of internet users use these different platforms.
3. have a Tailor-Made Digital Marketing Strategy
Like us, you are probably sick of the phrase “in these uncertain times”. This is an uninspired phase that means nothing. It is just a way for companies to market their product without feeling guilty.
This is one of those things that is not just affecting a few people. It is affecting everyone.
If you are feeling guilty about advertising your business now, then maybe you shouldn’t advertise, or maybe think of a different way of advertising than traditional ads.
This is a great time to try new things! See how well your business does on Instagram or Youtube. Customize your message to fit your audience and do not make it generic.
If you have a marketing team, ask them about the different ways you can get in front of your customers. If you don’t have a marketing team, then try different things. There are plenty of tools out there to help you test and analyse these different avenues.
4. Take Customer Payments Online
Most people pay their bills online. Most people buy things online. Most people have no problem putting in their card info online. So why are you not letting people pay online?
If you already do this, good for you. If not then you need to get with the program. Your customer wants to pay you, let them.
There are plenty of tools you can get to allow people to pay you online. You can even put your whole store online. You can set up a subscription program, a rewards program, even a coupon program. The possibilities are endless.
5. Have your own Website and domain name
Building your business on someone else’s platform is like building your headquarters on leased land. It might work but you are subject to the success and whims of that property owner.
If Facebook shuts down, your business shuts down. If twitter goes offline for a few minutes your customers cannot find you.
They can choose to limit the number of people who can visit your page, charge your customers an entry fee, or even steal your customer’s data, and unlike an actual lease, you have no contract to say otherwise.
Wouldn’t you rather own the land?
Having your own website and domain name allows you to be open to the entire internet, not just a part of it. It allows you to control all aspects of your online presence and message.
Custom Website
Some of the benefits of having your own website that you maintain and control
- Complete control over content- this may not seem like much, but your message will not be competing with the feed of thousands of other messages.
- Direct customer contact- you can be sure your message is reaching every customer without paying to reach them
- Security- you can be sure that your customer's data is not being mined or used by 3rd parties
- Email addresses- You can typically get an email address for anyone in the company
- Open to everyone- not everyone uses the same platforms. With your own website you are open to everyone who is online.
Social Media Only
Some of the downsides of having your online presence be on Just Social Media
- Posts only go to some of your followers- You have to pay for all of them to see it, even though they are following you or like your page.
- Data Breaches and Privacy issues- If you are in charge of maintaining your customers info, this might be a problem.
- Filled with Bots and Trolls- You never know if someone is genuine.
- Most of the users are Gen Z- This is great if your product is targeted to the 18-24 demo, but if not you need something else.
- Poor domain name/email address- Why tell your customers to go to someone else's business? You should have your own domain name with your own email address.